17 July 2020 – Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto – Spain.
The Free Practice 2 was held at a temperature rather high: 51° on the asphalt and 34° in the air. The higher temperatures have considerably slowed down the track and only four pilots succeeded in improving their performance. The warm temperature puts not only the tires to test, but also the athletic condition of the pilots.
Romano did an accurate work of tuning, working with old tires for a major part of the test session. He did 15 laps, sealing his best time in the last lap, with the time of 1’47.642 andwith a gap of 0.986 s from the leader G. Rodrigo. In the ranking he results to be in sixteenth place, while in the combined ranking of Friday he is still in eleventh place, thus at the moment he has direct access to the qualifying 2.
Alonso is working hard to improve the setting of his FR 250GP. Unfortunately he encountered some issues. For sure he will solve these problems before the race with his team. Did 15 laps, sealing his best time in the sixth lap, with the time of 1’48.243. In the ranking of the Free Practice 2 he results to be in twenty first place, with a gap from the leader of 1.587 s. In the combined ranking he is in twenty-fifth place.
The Free Practice 3 that will take place tomorrow morning at 9 am, at lower temperatures, it will be crucial in order to improve their best lap. So that they can earn the direct access to the Q2.
Here there are the thoughts of the protagonists.
Romano Fenati: “I am happy for the work that we have done in the second session of the Free Practice here in Jerez but I am not completely fulfilled by the result obtained. We have worked on the race pace with used tires, because due the high temperatures the tires will be stressed out. The sealed times are pretty good. We hope that tomorrow we will do a good qualification, because it will be crucial for the race.”
Alonso Lopez: “Today was not my best day, but I think if we change something tomorrow we can improve. We have to do a very good lap tomorrow morning so we can have access to qualifying 2. We still have a lot of work to do to step forward tomorrow.”
Max Biaggi – Team Owner: “After the first two rounds of free practice, we noticed that there is still some work to do, in order to improve the setting of both our bikes.
Romano at the moment is not too far from the leaders and I am sure that tomorrow there will be the chance to do a further step forward, to be permanently in the top five. Alonso in the second session of free practice has improved a little, but he still has some difficulties in entering the turn. We hope that tomorrow his confidence with the bike will increase. Throughout the race the average speed will be pretty slow for sure, but for us is really important to improve and climb up again the ranking.”
