17 June 2022 – Sachsenring – Germany
It goes on file the first day of free practice on the Sachsenring. Since the morning both John and Ayumu have been fast. In fact, John in free practice 1 got the second lap time and Ayumu was sixth. Thanks to a cloudless sky, the sun warmed the ground of the German circuit and, at the beginning of the FP2, the temperature on the ground reached 45ºC. This, in fact made the track slower and the times of the fastest drivers did not improve much.
After the two free practice sessions John was fifth, with the time achieved in the morning session, equal to 1’26.691. Our British driver is 0.328s behind the lead.
Even Ayumu in the afternoon session did not improve his best lap, committing to find the best setting in view of the race. 1’27.048 is the time with which our Japanese driver is eighteenth in the combined ranking. Remember that for Ayumu this represents his return to the track, after missing the last two grand prix due to an injury.
Following the words of the protagonists of this Friday.
JOHN MCPHEE : “It has been an interesting first day here in Sachsenring, I felt good on the bike almost immediately. We had to make some small changes to improve the overall feeling, but everything went correctly. I have done a long run with the tires, to try to understand how my race pace is. Honestly I am feeling quite good, we have done the laps alone, even the fastest lap, so I think it shows that we are in very good shape. We always know that there is more work to do for tomorrow, but day one has been a successful start.”
AYUMU SASAKI : “It felt good to be back on track and I enjoyed a lot riding my bike again. I expected more pain, but I did not feel much in FP1 we had a good start, and I felt good on the bike. In FP2 I started to feel a little bit tired, because I have not been training for three weeks and at the same time I started to feel a little bit of pain. Overall we finished really well and tomorrow, as we did not really use new tires, so we have the chance to improve . Let’s see what we can do.”
MAX BIAGGI – TEAM OWNER : “John was fifth in the combined rankings, while Ayumu was a bit behind. Free practice 3 will certainly be fundamental where, thanks to the low temperatures, it will be possible to get the best performance. Ayumu will have to recover some of his fitness, given his absence due to injury in the last two GPs. In fact the track has most of the left turns and just in the left turns Ayumu has a little ‘fatigue, because of his injury to the clavicle. The Sachsenring for John is a friendly track, so it will be necessary to get a good result from qualifying.”
Results Liqui Moly Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland 2022 – Combined FP1 – FP2
1. Tatsuki SUZUKI (Honda) 1’26.363, 5. John MCPHEE (Husqvarna) 1’26.691, 18. Ayumu SASAKI (Husqvarna) 1’26.963.
