M2: German GP: Marc VDS Friday report

POSITIVE FIRST DAY FOR MARC VDS AT SACHSENRING The Marc VDS Racing Team's Scott Redding was less than a second off the fastest time in today's first free practice session at Sachsenring. The 17-year-old Briton finished the session in 20th ...

POSITIVE FIRST DAY FOR MARC VDS AT SACHSENRING

The Marc VDS Racing Team's Scott Redding was less than a second off the fastest time in today's first free practice session at Sachsenring. The 17-year-old Briton finished the session in 20th position, with his teammate, Hector Faubel, just a tenth of a second further back in 25th.

Redding ran in the top five during the early stages of the session, which was run in sweltering conditions at the physically demanding Sachsenring circuit. After pitting for new tyres the Marc VDS rider returned to the track but got held up by traffic and was unable to improve his lap time. Redding was lucky to walk away from a big crash at the end of the session, after losing control of his Suter MMX machine at turn nine and running off the track at the fourth gear, 185km/h turn ten.

Faubel improved his lap time with every run during today's hour-long practice session, completing 29 laps around the 3.671km Sachsenring circuit. The main focus for the 26-year-old Spaniard was on getting a better feel for his Suter MMX machine, an approach he will also adopt for tomorrow's second free practice session, after making some small set-up changes overnight.

Today's free practice session was held in hot conditions, but thunderstorms are being predicted to arrive during tomorrow's all-important qualifying.

Scott Redding #45: 20th - 1'27.311
"The session started okay and I felt happy at the pace we were running; it didn't feel like we were going that fast to be honest. We switched to a new set of tyres halfway through the session, looking for a faster lap time, but I got held up for a long time behind Yuki Takahashi and the front tyre had already started to go off by the time I found a clear track in front of me. While the start of the session was good, the end certainly wasn't; I got completely sideways in turn nine and couldn't get it gathered up before crashing at turn 10. I'm okay and so is the bike, which is the main thing. The lap time will come tomorrow, I'm confident of that, so we should be in a good position going into qualifying.

Hector Faubel #55: 25th - 1'27.491
"Today we didn't make any big changes to the bike; I just did as many laps as possible to try and better understand the bike as it was. We got faster with each run, so the understanding is coming, but we did have a few issues under hard braking which we need to address. We'll also make some small changes to the front of the bike overnight and tomorrow we will use the same approach as today. I'm pretty happy with progress today, as I improved my lap time with each run. I'm confident we can improve even further tomorrow."

Pete Benson: Scott Redding's Crew Chief
"We got a good start to the session. Scott got the bit between his teeth from the off and set his fastest lap after hooking up with a group of fast riders early on. We made a few small changes to the suspension settings to try and improve rear traction at certain parts of the circuit, but this is something we'll have to look at again in tomorrow's second free practice session. In the past we've struggled a little bit when the track temperature has gone up, but Scott coped with the conditions much better today. Overall, it was a pretty good session and we should be able to improve further tomorrow."