Team HRC fast in free practice at Portimão

“We can be happy with our Friday, both because my right arm felt good and because it's been a long time since we were just four tenths of a second from the front. Of course, with such a close classification, the placement is what it is, but being so close in terms of lap times is encouraging and gives us a bit of fresh air and motivation. That said, we’re keeping our feet on the ground and will continue to work for tomorrow, even though the feeling on the bike is already pretty good. The track in FP1 was super hot, but with the temperature dropping slightly at six in the afternoon, it felt nice to ride and the track was really fast. The lap times we set on race tyres were very good, so we'll see what happens tomorrow.”

“Overall, we did a really good job today and both the team and I worked very hard. We started with the same setup as in Most, basically just making a few clicks to the suspension for FP1, and it worked quite well. We made some further refinements for FP2 to address some issues we had during the last race with the front “locking” a bit too much. I think what we tried worked very well, and then we focused on the electronics, trying to improve my confidence on the bike. In the end, the gap to the front is super small and we are quite close around what is a very tricky track, which is very good. Both of us are close to the top, so we’re there, perhaps a little surprisingly, but we’re there. The schedule is a bit strange, in that at 6pm the track conditions are perfect, but by 6.30pm it starts to cool down. Anyway, by that time tomorrow, the race will be almost done. So, we’re happy for now, and will now turn our attention to the races and see how it goes.”