Spanish GP: Gresini Racing Friday practice report

Honda Gresini MotoGP Practice Recap

San Carlo Honda Gresini Team riders Toni Elias and Alex de Angelis encountered a variety of difficulties on the opening day of the Grand Prix of Spain today, with both riders struggling to find an effective base setting for the Jerez circuit within the confines of a 45-minute first free practice session.

Elias encountered a fundamental set-up problem on each of his RC212V machines - which featured different chasses - that severely affected front-end feel. De Angelis, meanwhile, worked diligently on the rear grip issues he has had in the opening two rounds of the season in Qatar and Japan and made some improvements, although he didn't have enough time to reap the fruit of his progress by setting a fast lap on a fresh tyre at the end of the session.

Alex De Angelis (13th; 1'41.557): "We did the whole session on one tyre and if we'd have had time to put a new one in at the end I'm sure the lap time would have been much better. But that wasn't the objective today -- the objective was to improve rear grip and we tried a lot of different things to that end. We've strayed a long way from our base setting and at the moment we don't have something that really works or that we're really familiar with, but we have gathered a lot of useful information that we can now analyse and decide which is the right path to follow tomorrow. I'm not too pleased with the position but the important thing was to get lots of laps in and give the guys plenty to work from tonight so that we're in a position to make improvements over the two sessions tomorrow."

Toni Elias (15th 1'41.736): "It has been a difficult first day, more difficult than Motegi. Something is completely out of place and we need to have a look at the data tonight and work out what it is. I tried two versions of the chassis today -- one of them for the first time - and I could see some positive things in it but we have yet to decide which one we'll work on tomorrow. The issue we're having is the same on both bikes -- I don't have enough contact with the front tyre - so it seems to be a fundamental problem with the base setting we're using and it is something we didn't struggle with at all at the test. Something just isn't right. We've got a lot of work to do but once we work out where this problem is coming from I'm sure we can make swift progress."

Fausto Gresini - Team Manager: "I was expecting a much better start to the weekend than this and I am not happy with how the first session has gone. We should have a much better base setting to work from with our bikes but for whatever reason nothing worked today. Now we need to sit down and analyse the data, work out what it is exactly that is not working and improve the situation for tomorrow. Neither rider is in the position they should be in and we must be more competitive tomorrow."

-credit: gresini