Promising start for Mahindra Aspar at Circuit of the Americas

With no time for rest after a wild Argentinian Grand Prix and a problematic journey over to Austin, the Moto3 riders were out on track on Friday for the first day of the Grand Prix of the Americas. The fastest of them today was Fabio Quartararo, with a time of 2.16.250, beating the track record dating back to 2013 (2.16.345). On the hypothetical front row from the combined times of the first day, he would be joined by Romano Fenati and Niccolò Antonelli. At a complicated circuit, with many corners and two long straights, only nine riders finished within the same second.
The Mahindra Aspar riders had a promising start in the Grand Prix of the Americas. Pecco Bagnaia even led the timesheet at one point in the first session of the day, although in Free Practice 2 his feeling was much more positive: The Italian cut the gap to the leader by more than half a second and finished just 0.860 off the top. The Italian was in good form, after suffering with the top speed of the Mahindra in Argentina, and qualified eighth. Teammate Jorge Martin concluded the day in sixteenth position, after improving his time by almost two seconds. The Spaniard is positive about the opening day and hopes to cut the gap to those ahead of him on Saturday.

8th Pecco Bagnaia 2.17.110 (27 laps): "I'm happy, it has been a good first day and we managed to enter the top ten at the beginning of this Grand Prix. Here in Austin we are suffering less with the bike than we did in Qatar and Argentina. Tomorrow we will work on the front end, because when braking the bike is lifting up at the back and preventing me from stopping correctly. On my fast lap I made a mistake on the first sector, otherwise I could have further improved my time."


16th Jorge Martín 2.17.708 (21 laps): "It was a positive day. We went been much better than in the Grand Prix last year, which was not so good for us. The first contact with the circuit has been good overall, although we have had some problems with chatter and I struggled to find feeling with the front. Tomorrow we will work with the swingarm to improve the setup of the bike, which was very aggressive today, and we should get closer to the top riders."