Italiano
DAY 1 MAGNY – COURS; DIFFICULT TRACK, WORK ON TRACK FOCUSED ON THE RACE PACE!
Magny-Cours is a complicated track, where the Pata Go Eleven team and Andrea Iannone struggled to adapt last year. This year, the feeling immediately seemed better, the times were faster, but some difficulties recurred, both in terms of electronics setup and adaptation, especially in the first and third sectors. The top 15 finished a day focused on race pace, without changing tyres; a half-second ideal time shows that the perfect lap wasn’t achieved.
In FP1, Andrea took to the track with the SC0 solution, the hardest tyre, completing 18 laps, improving towards the end of the session. The most difficult sectors were the first and third, where most of the gap is accumulated. A few setup changes and some electronics requests led to a good improvement, but there is still a gap to close, considering that almost all the riders are within a second from the top.
Free Practice 1:
P 1 T. Razgatlioglu 1.39.743
P 2 S. Lowes + 0.222
P 3 N. Bulega + 0.253
…
P 16 A. Iannone + 0.978
For FP2, a major change was made to the front, which didn’t yield the desired results, so the staff opted to come back to the morning bike. We also tested the 126 rear tyre, which proved much faster, becoming the best choice for the race. There was an excellent step forward in the second and third sectors, accompanied by a solid final stretch. The first sector, where about half of the final gap is accumulated, still needs to be fixed. On the last flying lap, when there was a good chance of improvement, Andrea had a light crash without any consequences. No tyre changes, just work on race distance; tomorrow will be time attack time!
Free Practice 2:
P 1 N. Bulega 1.35.428
P 2 S. Lowes + 0.400
P 3 A. Locatelli + 0.414
…
P 15 A. Iannone + 1.512
Having established a good mechanical set-up, the work now shifts to the electronics, especially with the 126 rear, where the bike becomes much more nervous and less linear; the goal for tomorrow is to achieve a good qualifying result. It will all be down to the millisecond mark, as happens every year here at Magny Cours!
Andrea Iannone (Rider):
“I’m happy to be back on the bike after the summer break; here at Magny-Cours it’s always a bit complicated because it’s a track I don’t know well. Today I started cautiously in the morning, then in the afternoon we improved in the second half of the session. We never changed tyres, we focused on race pace. Towards the end I managed to improve the second and fourth sectors, but I still haven’t put together a clean lap. In the evening we’ll work on the electronics side. I’m lacking consistency when entering and exiting corners, but in terms of setup we have a good base. I think the potential is good, we’ve already been faster than last year, but let’s see how much we can improve for tomorrow!”
FRIDAY PICTURES: CLICK HERE
