Circuit: Circuito de Jerez
Circuit Length: 4.4 km
Bike #63 Zulfahmi Khairuddin – Best time: 1’52.402
Bike #84 Jakub Kornfeil – Best time: 1’50.628
Day one of the final preseason test at Jerez got off to a slow start with wind and rain disrupting each of the three Moto3 sessions.
The beginning of the day saw DRIVE M7 SIC Racing Team riders, Zulfahmi Khairuddin and Jakub Kornfeil tackle the varying conditions, as they focused their attentions on adapting their KTM Moto3 bikes set up for the Spanish Circuit.
As rain continued to fall the majority of the Moto3 field chose to wait out the remaining two sessions, but with no improvement in conditions the opening day concluded with little time on track.
#84 Jakub Kornfeil
“The weather today has been playing with us. We worked hard in the morning practice because we knew the rain would come at some point. When I went out for the first session the bike felt completely different than in Sepang. I was surprised because it was quite difficult to ride at first but even with this we made quite a good lap time and we are not so far away. For sure though we can do much better. I think when we test in the raintomorrow it will be easier and we will see better where we are because nobody else tested much in the rain today. Tomorrow we must again be clever and just keep working hard and hopefully we will get a lot more time on track.”
#63 Zulfahmi Khairuddin
“Today was not a great day for us. With the combination of the wind and rain I wasn’t able to do many laps. In the first session I was checking the bike still but to be honest I was not comfortable pushing. I was hoping that the weather would improve in the afternoon but unfortunately it got worse. We chose not to ride in the wet today and instead wait for tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to getting more time on track then, whether it’s wet or dry.”
Johan Stigefelt – Team Manager
“The weather hasn’t been great here today. We had only the first session really where it was dry and then it started to get wet. Of course coming from Sepang we knew that we may encounter some difficulty with the settings and that we’d have to make some changes to adapt to the different conditions. Both riders had this feeling when they first went out, that it was very uncomfortable, but even with the small amount of laps that we got today, we were still able to improve on this. Fahmi had some more issues with his bike so he didn’t do as many laps as he would have liked, but I’m confident that he can better this tomorrow.
Jakub was able to get more time on track which was good because in the end he felt more comfortable and even though it started to rain, he did his fastest lap time on the last lap, which was very positive. We know the direction fortomorrow but as we’ve seen the forecast is again for rain, so we will see. If it continues to rain we will test our wet set up but over the next two days we hope also for dry, so that we can get a good base setting here ready for the Jerez GP.”
