Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP |News details:Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Start Quest for Grip on Aragon Friday

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Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP's Álex Rins and Fabio Quartararo got a first chance to try the new asphalt at the MotorLand Aragón in the Gran Premio de Aragón Friday sessions. They finished the day in 19th and 20th place respectively in the Practice rankings.

Alcañiz (Spain), 30th August 2024

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP's Fabio Quartararo and Álex Rins kicked off the Gran Premio de Aragón race weekend with two busy Friday practice sessions. They struggled to get in hot laps due to a lack of grip. It resulted in them taking 19th and 20th place respectively in the Practice results, putting them on the Q1 entry list.

Despite noticing a lack of grip with the new asphalt, Rins finished FP1 in 14th place. In the afternoon, he opted to start the Practice by continuing to focus on data gathering and then move on to setting a fast lap. He showed progress during his first time-attack attempt, but ultimately couldn't challenge for a place in Q2. His best time of the session, a 1'47.400s, set on lap 19/20, put him in 19th place in the Practice timesheets, with a 1.599s margin to the top.

Quartararo wasn't finding any grip in the morning, finishing FP1 in 18th place. In the afternoon, however, El Diablo showed better pace early on in the session. A 1'48.237s put him inside the top 10. The Frenchman was keen to climb back up to a provisional Q2 spot when the times quickened but suffered a small crash in Turn 6 midway through the session. Though okay to continue, the incident lost him valuable time. When he returned to the box, he had to go straight into time-attack mode on a different spec bike. Quartararo set a 1'47.401s on lap 20/20, which saw him finish in 20th place in the Friday timesheets, with a 1.600s gap to first.

The teammates will be back in action for FP2, held tomorrow from 10:10 - 10:40 (GMT +2). The qualifying sessions will follow from 10:50 - 11:30, and the 11-lap Sprint will start at 15:00.

Massimo Meregalli

Team Director

We had a busy but unrewarding first day at the Aragon track. We had higher hopes for the new tarmac when it comes to improved grip, so much so that we were afraid it would negatively affect tyre life, but we discovered the opposite today. This amplified in a negative way our performance. We will spend all the available time before the next session to learn from the data we collected today to prepare something for FP2 and the qualifying sessions. On top of today's lack of grip, Fabio had a crash in Turn 6 but, luckily, it had no big consequences.

Álex Rins

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

The grip was very low, and the day was quite hard. Today we gave our maximum, as always, and it looks like we are a bit further from the top guys than we were at other tracks. For sure, the low-grip conditions at this track don't help us. Let's see if we can improve tomorrow.

Fabio Quartararo

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

Today, and especially this morning, was quite tough for us. I crashed in the afternoon, so I had to go out with a different bike that I was not supposed to use because it was a different spec. I had to adapt to it quite quickly. But overall, the feeling was not great today.