We start with a brace
Testing Friday immediately positive for the KTM to Phillip Island, home of the Australian Grand Prix. In fact, both bikes of the official team finished with a one-two led by Brad Binder, followed a tenth and a half behind by his teammate Jack Miller, who contests his home GP here. A positive performance therefore for the Austrian manufacturer, with Maverick Viñales completing the virtual front row astride his Aprilia. Outside the top-10, however, is the reigning champion and leader of the world championship ranking Francesco Bagnaia, who will have to overcome the obstacle of Q1 in order to then compete for pole position.
To Phillip Island to forget Mandalika
The greatest satisfaction is all for Binderauthor of the best time in 1:27.943 as well as the only driver to dip below the 1:28 mark: “I think overall it was a positive day for us – he commented to the microphones of Sky Sports MotoGP – from the first laps I felt good and comfortable, and I think everything is going quite well. The soft tire won’t give us any problems for the Sprint: maybe there will be a question mark for the long race, but I expect everyone will use the soft for the Sprint. In any case, I think the priority will be to get to the end of the race. Obviously after a ride you can do whatever you want with the bike, but clearly you will then have to consider consumption carefully. In the last season I learned a lot in this aspect because I had a lot of problems with degradation, and I hope I don’t have them again. I think we have made some small progress in Japan, where we changed the set up. The bike in general performed well especially in the race in Indonesia, but unfortunately I had that jolt coming out of the chicane and hit Marini. After that, you know what happened next: I was pushing too hard to try to recover and I also hit Oliveira, but it was all my fault and I’m sorry for that. I think we can do better this weekend.”
The extra motivation of the home climate
The comment from is also very positive Jack Miller, 2nd and loaded for the rest of the weekend in front of his home crowd: “Obviously I’m happy with the feeling with the bike, it went very well and it’s nice when you can enjoy these days where there was also fantastic weather – commented – I think it won’t stay that way any longer, but I’m happy to be here enjoying these days and having fun on this track. The bike handles well and I’m enjoying it, ed it’s very positive to go straight into Q2 also because we’re going strong. Now we focus on improving the race pace and see what we can do. I live far from Phillip Island, but I know the weather can change quickly. In any case I don’t feel the pressure, if anything the tires will feel that. It’s a great feeling to ride in front of your home fans, and the Australian fans are really special. They give you great support and I’m happy to have this opportunity, I’m sure we’ll have fun.”
The indication of the Soft rubber
In conclusion, a few moments after the checkered flag, the Team Manager also intervened Francesco Guidottiwho was also satisfied with the overall performance in the Tests: “We started quite well with a good feeling felt by the two riders, especially Brad – he added – we know that Jack here has extra motivation for the home race which always makes the difference, though it seems that on a technical level we are quite good. In my opinion, Martin could have been faster in the flying lap than him, I don’t know if he found Bagnaia or if he looked for him. As a step for the Sprint it seems we can hope well, but we’ll see. We preferred to use the Soft more to see if it could be a valid option for the Sprint tomorrow. Here between Soft and Medium there is a big difference, because today’s medium was last year’s hard, so there are a couple of important steps and we need to understand. This year Friday is more important than in the past because you already prepare something for the race on Saturday and it is important to go directly to Q2, therefore it’s a different Friday than what we were used to and it’s more indicative. Regarding the result I make my begging; we’ll see for Sunday because there will be particular conditions according to the forecast, but tomorrow the Sprint will also be important.”
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