Joan Mir and Alex Rins getting back into the swing of things

Joan Mir: 11th – 1’37.749 (+ 0.686)
Alex Rins: 21st – 1’39.101 (+ 2.038)

Team Suzuki Ecstar took to the track on Friday morning at the Circuit of Jerez – Angel Nieto for the Andalucia GP, just five days after the opening race of the season.

Joan Mir had a steady start to the morning session, before going for a push in the afternoon. FP1 meant trying different tyre combinations and fine-tuning setup and finished in 11th with a 1’37.749. Feeling confident with his GSX-RR, he showed good pace from the beginning of FP2, and put in a string of strong laps which saw him shoot up from 11th to 2nd, with a best time of 1’38.144. Mir is particularly strong in Sector 2, which he topped in the afternoon. He closed FP2 in 7th.

For Alex Rins, the day consisted of care and caution, with the Spaniard still nursing the nasty shoulder injury he suffered last Saturday. Rins decided to ride from FP1 onwards, giving himself a chance to gauge his feeling from the very beginning. He completed two runs in the morning with a total of nine laps and a best time of 1’40.222, before deciding to sit out the remainder of the session to be better prepared for FP2. In the afternoon he was able to improve his lap time by just over a second, to a 1:39.101.

Joan Mir:

“Today I worked on race pace – especially using the hot conditions in the afternoon to try and put together some laps – as well as working on setup. I’m making up for the time I lost last Sunday. Tomorrow in FP3 it will be important to set a quick lap in order to go into Q2. It seems today we’ve learned some useful things, and we’ll see tomorrow what type of lap time I can do.”

Alex Rins:

“It was hard today, I expected to feel better on the bike, but I felt a lot of pain in my shoulder – especially under braking. In FP1 I was without painkillers, but I took some before FP2. Despite the pain, the good thing is that after these two sessions my shoulder does not seem more swollen or inflamed, so tomorrow we need to keep fighting and working. I managed to try a few settings and consider the tyre choice ahead of the race, let’s see if I can be a bit faster tomorrow.”