This morning’s Free Practise 1 session was a disaster for the #28 of Markus Reiterberger as a clutch issue forced him to miss out the session meaning valuable track time was missed, in the afternoon session the issue was resolved and he managed to get 20 laps under his belt. Despite getting out for the second session the German struggled to get a good feeling with his BMW S 1000 RR and found himself in P15 on combined results, his fastest being a (1’41.042).
Team mate Tom Sykes however managed to get some good solid laps in the opening FP1 session as he lapped his best of a (1’40.438) completing 17 laps. The second session saw rise in temperature and with riders making changes between sessions the lap times were evidently going to fall. Sykes manage to beat his opening FP1 time by -0.504 (1’39.934) putting him in P5 on combined times.
Shaun Muir – Team Principal
"Yeah a really difficulty day for Markus, we came out from the test at Misano with not a bad feeling but in FP1 this morning he was forced out with a clutch issue so we lost all that session. FP2 he was playing catch up from the start and really found it difficult to find a comfortable setting with the bike. We’ve made a big change for Markus for tomorrow which is a big gamble but I think it’s the right direction we need to be working in.
Tom worked through all his set-ups that we planned, we tried the range of tyres that are available as it's going to be tyre critical with the hot temperature tomorrow so, I think Tom is in a good position overnight going into FP3 and Superpole tomorrow. "
Tom Sykes (GBR)
"I’m quite happy because all things considered we weren’t chasing a lap time so I’m relatively happy to be in the top 5, but the focus today has been trying to understand some components over the distance. Our lap times have been consistent but we still need to see if it is competitive for the race tomorrow.
We still need to look at a tenth here and there during the lap but overall I am happy with the progress of the S 1000 RR considering how early we are in this project. My target now is to have a good run of the next four rounds and it starts here in Jerez."
Markus Reiterberger (GER)
"We are not where we want to be on the first day and not where we should be for sure. The first session we lost completely with the clutch issue which set us back a lot, the second session was better and in the early stages we were in the top 10 but couldn’t improve on this and ended up slipping down the P15.
We are really struggling at the moment but I hope tomorrow will be a better day for us and we can get the bike setting which works for me."
