USA GP • DAY 1

Mandatory GPS at COTA?

Austin, 8th April 2022: for Stefano Nepa and Ivàn Ortolà the time has come to start the weekend on the stars and stripes circuit.

Both drivers are faster during FP1, even if it’s the first round on one of the most complicated circuits of the whole season. In fact, StefanoNepa set the 10th fastest time, while Ivàn Ortolà set the 13th, even though he has never lapped before at COTA.

Good feeling and speed, however, are not the basis of FP2 during which in fact the performance of both drivers remain unchanged.

Confident that we can improve tomorrow through the painstaking work already underway.

“After finishing the first day here in Texas, I can say that it’s a pretty technical circuit, but one that I like. During FP1 I felt good, but during FP2 the situation changed because we made some changes so I lost the feeling. I struggled to hold the bike throughout the session. We will continue to work on the set-up from the first free practice session to find the best solution.”

“I’m not at my full form unfortunately, but right from the start I tried to push as hard as I could. This morning I started off on the right foot because I just had a couple of little issues in the hard braking, but we made some adjustments right away that I felt better with.

In FP2 though, trying to take another step, we tweaked some details, but I couldn’t push like I wanted to. Tomorrow morning, however, there’s every chance to get into Q2.”

“This morning we were very happy, because anyway COTA is one of the most difficult tracks in the world championship, being very technical both riders managed to make good results, also Ivàn who, for being the first time, acquired a good feeling. This afternoon instead, with Ortolà we did some more tests, but he felt the bike was completely different and he didn’t have good sensations. Therefore, he couldn’t get a clean lap. While with Stefano, although it was the same bike as this morning, even he was not found this afternoon. Now we’re working on getting both guys into Q2. We’ll see.”