The sun shines on Lecuona and Vierge on Friday at Cremona

"It was a positive Friday. I pushed a bit more than the last two rounds, where I took things much easier on day one. But this Friday felt a bit different because last year we had a really good performance here, so I put more pressure on myself to be a bit more on the pace right away. So far, I feel really good on the bike. Even this morning, when we had some things to adjust on the bike, I was able to set a competitive lap time. By the afternoon, the team had done a great job to fix those issues. In FP2, conditions were trickier – it was much hotter, and we had some issues with rear grip. We’ve always struggled with that in hot conditions and today was no different. But we finished inside the top six also in the afternoon, which is a good result. We now know this track well, and it’s one of the stronger ones for us during the season. The most important thing for the race will be to try to avoid mistakes – I’ve seen many riders making errors today, myself included, especially in the braking zones. It’s easy to run a bit wide, or even crash. We just need to remain consistent. The goal right now is to keep improving and to try and be as strong as possible in qualifying. Then, of course, a top five finish would be great, and I’ll be aiming for that, but let’s wait and see how the race develops. It’s 23 laps, so the longest race in terms of laps and in hot conditions. It will be tough, but I feel very good physically and mentally."

“A positive day from the start, and the feeling with the bike has been quite good. The conditions were very hot, especially for FP2, and we tried different things with the setup. The beginning of FP1 was very good, and I felt confident, so we decided to make a further change for the afternoon session. But I soon realized that I didn’t feel as comfortable. We changed the shock in an attempt to improve drive, but it had the opposite effect, and I started to experience a lot of spin, both with used and new tyres. Even so, we wanted to complete laps with new tyres to understand whether we were heading in the right direction or not. In the end, we saw that it wasn’t the best choice. That aside, our race pace is quite good. We are all very close, so now we need to focus on the qualifying lap, as we know it’s one of our weaker points. Even a tenth of a second can make a huge difference in qualifying, and also starting from a good position on the grid will make a big difference, especially here in Cremona”.