Free practice timesheets see twenty riders separated by less than a second. Fabio Quartararo returns to action with the fourteenth fastest time of the day. Maria Herrera places thirtieth.
Jorge Navarro is one of the in-form riders in the final stage of the Moto3 season, and he started out the Valencian GP with the sixth fastest time in the morning session. In the afternoon a rise in track temperature slowed down times and, although Navarro was second behind Efren Vazquez, in the combined timesheet for the two sessions he finished sixth. Friday was tremendously competitive in the lower cylinder class, with the 26 fastest riders all separated by less than 1 second.
Fabio Quartararo rejoins the action this weekend, after suffering an injury to his right ankle that has kept him from lining up at the last five races. The Frenchman made steady improvement on day one, setting the twelfth fastest time in the morning session, the eleventh in the afternoon run and the fourteenth best lap on the combined timesheet.
Maria Herrera also made progress during Friday, setting the twenty-ninth fastest time in the morning, the twenty-seventh best in the afternoon, and placing thirtieth overall.
Fabio Quartararo
-14th,1:40.375,35laps,140km
“I’m surprised, because I expected to go fast over one lap but not have much pace. I thought I wouldn’t be able to hold up for the entire day, but the positive thing is that every time we went out on track we lowered our times. We can still improve a lot, especially on the last part of the circuit. The other riders have come here from the flyaways; I wasn’t at the last race and in the two before that I was not quite right, so I’m very happy to be back after so long out.”
Jorge Navarro
-5th,1:40.061,36laps,144km
“Racing at home is always special and, as I am so strong now, even more so this year. We come to Valencia at a good moment and today we confirmed what had already been seen at recent races. We took to the track with our base setup and I immediately felt comfortable with both new and used tyres. In the afternoon session we struggled to lower the times we had set in the morning, but in the end I managed it and I am very happy with the position I got –and with the work we have done. We still have some details to improve and we will keep working hard tomorrow.”
María Herrera
-30th,1:41.195,34laps,136km
“I couldn’t wait to ride at home and I started the weekend very motivated. Unfortunately, today things didn’t come as easily as at other times, and tomorrow we will have to work hard on the bike in order to get it to where we want. The upside is that we are not far from the front and if tomorrow I managed to lower my times, we can be up there. I think we can manage it and hope that on Sunday we can have a beautiful race.”
