At their first night outing on a new track to study it, our riders experienced difficult conditions due to the strong wind blowing from the desert and the sand carried by it that gave a hard time with the tyres’s grip.

Sarath encountered, in the second session of the evening free practice, a problem merely caused by unlucky chance; in fact, at only 4 laps from the start, an unknown external object flew inside the air-box and damaged the carburettor, forcing him to stop. The technical control carried on by the mechanics verified that the glitch was such that required Sarath to retire from the practice.

Francesco, instead, could make full use of both the practice sessions to run as many laps as possible and to get acquainted with the new track, working at the same time to collect datas for the right bike’s set-up.

Francesco Mauriello #43 (2’15.955):

“During the first free practice, there have been improvements in spite of some small troubles, which were the same ones as at the Jerez IRTA Test. However, we managed to work very well and once we found the right set-up, we constantly progressed. If we keep working in this way, I’m confident to get good results in the next few days, especially for the race”.

Sarath Kumar #69 (2’22.776):

“It hasn’t been easy; it’s the first time that I face such peculiar conditions, moreover at my first race. At night, the lighting is reduced and besides all, I’ve been very unlucky because I had a very rare and unusual mechanical problem when I was doing well, so I couldn’t continue the practice session. For this very first race of mine, my target above all is to finish it; the position is important as well but at least for now, I think that the priority is to learn and improve myself".