Australian GP: MESSY START TO THE WEEKEND IN DOWN UNDER
Poor weather conditions did affect day one of practice at Phillip Island massively.
After two sunny days in the southern part of Australia a change in weather provided for some shambles. Whilst this morning’s FP1 was run in halfway acceptable conditions, the situation got enormous worse after lunch time. Due to heavy downpour the track was partial flooded so that the start of FP2 was stalling before the session was stopped by red flag signals after a few minutes. A changed time schedule for Saturday sees now an extend free practice in the morning. Despite all these circumstances, Stefan Bradl had a promising start into the weekend. The 26-year-old German factory rider in Aprilia Racing Team Gresini recorded eleventh fastest lap time this morning but found himself in tenth position of the combined free practice times as all lap times from Valentino Rossi were cancelled after a tyre mistake.
#6 Stefan BRADL (Aprilia Racing Team Gresini, Aprilia), FP1: P10 – 1´43.070 (7/12) / FP2: – :
“At the time as FP1 got underway this morning, the water on track was acceptable however, after a couple of laps it started to rain heavier. In any case, I had a good feeling with the bike immediately and also for the track’s conditions. Frankly, I expected to struggle more due to the low temperature to warm up the tyres and hold temperature in its range. But this wasn’t the case. In the afternoon it didn’t make sense to go out on track as the conditions were for nothing – either to learn something nor to work on the setting. It was just an unnecessary risk. So we just can wait and see how the weather will appear tomorrow, hopefully with some improvements.”
MotoGP™ Combined Free Practice Times FP1/FP2:
1 #35 Cal CRUTCHLOW / GBR / LCR Honda / Honda / 1´40.957 (FP1)
2 #9 Danilo PETRUCCI / ITA / OCTO Pramac Yakhnich / Ducati / 1´41.010 +0.053 (FP1)
3 #43 Jack MILLER / AUS / Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS / Honda / 1´41.457 +0.500 (FP1)
10 #6 Stefan BRADL / GER / Aprilia Racing Team Gresini / 1´43.070 +2.113 (FP1)