Pol Espargaro confident in Qatar practice after bike changes

The Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team riders Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith faced the second day of action at the 2016 season opener today and rode at full speed as they both pushed all the way to the end of FP3.

Pol Espargaro kicked off the day by conducting further adjustments to his Yamaha YZR-M1 MotoGP bike and concluded free practice two in 10th overall. Then, later today, the young Spaniard confidently leapt into action when FP3 began as he was determined to pass directly through to QP2. After a relentless effort, Espargaro’s fastest lap left him just over six tenths from third position and the 25 year old will now seek to follow up his positive form by clinching a solid qualifying position tomorrow.

Pol Espargaro 10th 1’55.476 (19 laps)
“It goes without saying that I’m pleased with the final result as I’m straight through to QP2, which is especially important when considering how things went today. During the first session, it took us a bit of time to get up to speed, mainly due to the fact that we were using the compound that I liked less than the other because we wanted to keep as many of those tyres as possible for FP3 and the upcoming days. However, in the end, I decided to not stop during the final stages of FP3 because for some reason, I’m faster on used Michelin tyres than new ones. This is a completely new situation for me as it was the opposite with Bridgestone where I was able to post one fast lap, but then I usually struggled at the end of the races. Therefore, today, I continued to ride until I ran the lap time I wanted, but at that point there were just four minutes until to the chequered flag fell and I had to come back to the garage. I couldn’t continue any longer because there was the risk that I would run out of fueI as didn’t stop before, which I was supposed to do. Yet, altogether we can be satisfied because we were able to post our time with an old tyre and after a lot of laps, but still we need to improve in FP4 tomorrow as everybody is really close together so we need to make some steps forward.”

Source – Tech3