Yonny Hernández improves times despite tyre troubles

Aspar Team rider satisfied with Friday performance and places sixteenth. Defective tyres hinder progress for both he and teammate Eugene Laverty

Friday at the Losail International Circuit saw the second night of MotoGP action in the desert, and in the second session there was a taste of what may be to come in qualifying tomorrow. The riders left it until the final ten minutes of the session to make a push for the top of the timesheets, Iannone, Lorenzo, Marquez, Dovizioso and Viñales finally broke the 1'55 mark, and they concluded the night separated by just over three tenths of a second. In addition, less than a second separated the top twelve finishers. The grid for raceday will be decided on Saturday, in the first qualifying session of 2016, and it appears that things will be equally as tight. 
Today the Aspar Team riders were able to see the power of their bikes, as the seven fastest bikes on the top speed chart were all Ducatis. Yonny Hernández, -sixteenth at the end of the day and the fifth highest top speed, continued to improve his times and feel more comfortable in each session. He was able to break the 1:57 barrier in the first session of the day and improved further in the second, lowering his times by around half a second. Despite suffering from the misfortune of several faulty tyres (one front and one rear), the Colombian was satisfied with the work carried out with his team and tomorrow will try to get into the first Q2 session of the season. 
Teammate Eugene Laverty also had difficulty with defective tyres, in addition to issues with the electronics on his Ducati. Despite having one of the fastest bikes on the grid (sixth on the top speed charts), he still did not feel comfortable riding and ended the day rounding off the timesheets. The Northern Irishman hopes for improvement in tomorrow's action at the Losail International Circuit, in preparation for Sunday's race. 
Yonny Hernández 16th 1.56.100 (34 laps): "We have been improving gradually and discovering a lot of things on the bike, and that is something with which we are happy. But on the other hand I am feeling uneasy, because we have already had to deal with several defective tyres. In FP2 we had a front tyre that we saw immediately was not working correctly. We rode yesterday in FP1 with a front tyre that worked perfectly, and we put in 23 laps with it. In contrast, today we changed tyres and on the sixth lap it behaved in a completely abnormal way, so we had to try another type of compound. This gives some concern both for tomorrow and for the race. Apart from that, today I felt comfortable, had a good pace and set a 1.56.1 halfway through the session. At the end we tried to bring that time down, but encountered a defective rear tyre. It's frustrating, but it's best not to think about that; we are doing a great job and we are gradually improving. When we get a bit of luck and put everything together, I'm sure we can fight to be among the top ten. As I said before, our engine is very powerful, so we will push our hardest to get into Q2."
Eugene Laverty 21st 1.57.135 (30 laps): “We had some incidents in the sessions today. The first was a mechanical problem, then we had an electronics issue with the second bike when we went out on that. We fixed that, then had a faulty front tyre to deal with afterwards. It was one of those nights; I maybe should have stayed in bed for a few more hours! I'd been suffering problems in winter testing when trying to make the bike turn in, which had lowered my confidence a little, and now I know why the bike wasn't responding how I wanted; Yesterday was almost like the start of preseason again, but there is reason for optimism because now I understand what I was lacking. With the different engine we've had to go back to the drawing board. I feel as if we are still testing, we're struggling; obviously I'm a rider and I want to push all the time, but we decided to keep a fresh tyre for tomorrow in FP4 and see how the bike is for a longer run.”