In the blink of an eye the MotoGP World Championship has switched continents and after packing up following last Sunday's race in Germany the riders were back out on track today on the other side of the Atlantic. The Laguna Seca circuit in California saw two free practice sessions for the premier-class only, with fresh morning temperatures giving way to a fiercely hot afternoon.
Héctor Barberá completed no less than 46 laps of the legendary circuit today, making the MAPFRE Aspar man one of the most active riders on track. The majority of them were spent assessing tyre performance, which will be a crucial factor this weekend, as well as an unsuccessful rear shock experiment this afternoon. His ninth lap of the afternoon session was his fastest of the day and made him the twelfth fastest rider overall, just over 1.3 seconds off the pace of Lorenzo.
Héctor Barberá:
"We have tried two different tyre compounds today and it looks like the harder of the two works the best. I suffered for grip throughout the first half of this morning's session but as soon as we switched to the hard my feeling improved. I really enjoy riding at this circuit and I think that even though our position is some way down the order we have started the Grand Prix well because we have improved with every outing. The objective for tomorrow is to cut the gap to the top and compete to be the best Ducati. We tried a few things this afternoon that we weren't sure about, including a different rear shock. We weren't too keen on it but we didn't have time to change back. The time flew past today but I have enjoyed myself. It is only day one and we have lots of room to improve."
MAPFRE Aspar press release.
