Team HRC sets to work in WorldSBK practice at Assen

“It was not the easiest first day of a race weekend, considering our expectations here at Assen. This morning we had an issue with the handbrake, nothing major but still costly in terms of the time it took to sort out, 20 minutes at least, which affected our FP1 work plan. We made some big changes to our bike setup for FP2 and my feeling on the bike started to improve little by little, though not enough yet. We are around eight tenths from the front, and though it’s true that the times are all super close today, our target is to fight for the podium. So eight tenths are still too much even if, to be honest, we are just three tenths from the top five. That's why we need to stay focused and work to check all the data and make a plan that can allow us to make a step during tomorrow’s FP3.”

“We are finally back in action and it’s been a positive first day. We have a new rear tyre for the race that we didn’t have last year, and it was important to make some comparisons so that we make the best choice for the races. I think we worked well in this regard. We also came here with a plan B and C, ready for every situation we might encounter, and our race pace was not bad today. I think we are in a better situation than it might appear from the timesheets, also considering that this is one of the most demanding tracks on the calendar for me. Everybody is very close in terms of lap times so it will be important to be consistent in terms of race pace, which is one of our strong points. Having said that, we will analyse today’s data to try and make another step tomorrow and close the gap a little more.”