Stefan Bradl struggled his way to 11th position in Jerez on Friday, ending the day with a fall. He now hopes to return to the top ten in Saturday morning’s third session.
With a best personal lap time of 1’40.799, Bradl was 1.2 seconds off the leading pace of Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo. Compounding a tricky afternoon, he finished up in the gravel trap on the outside of Criville corner.
"Today has been a tough day for us, as we are a bit far from the guys at the front," said the LCR Honda MotoGP rider. "I also crashed in the afternoon session but I am okay. This morning, since the beginning, the bike setup was good and we expected to do even better in the afternoon but, at the end, it was completely the opposite.
"We tried different tyres but took the wrong direction, losing the rear grip and, automatically, we also lost the confidence with the front end. So we went back to the same setting and tyres choice from this morning, which improved the overall situation, but it’s still yet to be perfect.
"I tried to push to reduce the gap and that is when I lost the front, crashing out. Actually, we have been a bit unlucky today, but I am not particularly worried because we do have the capacity to improve in tomorrow’s practice."
Should he finish outside the top ten across the opening trio of practice periods, Bradl’s only chance of making the Q2 phase of Qualifying would be to finish either first or second in Q1. Should he fail to do that, the German would start 13th or lower on the grid for Sunday’s Gran Premio bwin de España.
source : motogp.com
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