A solid day for the Team HRC riders on Friday at Magny-Cours

"Overall, I’m happy with the day because we focused on race preparation, and I felt good with the improvements we made to the bike throughout. In the morning, we struggled with the changes of direction, and this track has quite a few of those. The bike felt heavy and difficult to handle, so our target for the afternoon was to address that issue. Luckily, the weather held, and we had a dry session, which was very useful for us. With the same used tyres from the morning, I immediately felt more comfortable on the bike and was able to shave off a couple of tenths straight away. When I came into the pits, I was happy, and we didn’t make any major changes to the setup, just a few small adjustments to the electronics. On my second run, we tested a new front tyre spec, but I didn’t like it much, so after about six laps, I switched back to the SC1 front tyre. Keeping the same rear tyre, I finished the session and set my personal best lap on the eighteenth lap, which leaves me quietly confident for tomorrow’s race. The only issue I had in the afternoon was some pain and lack of strength in my right arm, possibly from the stress of controlling the bike in the morning. This led to quite a big moment through the chicane at one point, but I was luckily able to save the situation. I’ll head to the clinic now for some treatment, and we’ll see how things go tomorrow, especially since it’s almost certain it will rain."

"It wasn’t such a bad day, despite our final position. When we started out this morning, the feeling was okay, and we were just missing some speed around the track. We worked on that ahead of FP2, and actually saw some improvement. It was also crucial to test some new tyre specs because, with rain almost guaranteed tomorrow, today was our only chance to prepare in case Sunday turns out to be dry. We completed that task and have a pretty clear idea of our tyre choice but that took some time of course. We already have decent pace anyway, and if we can improve just a little more, we’re in with a chance of some solid races.”