The first day of the Grand Prix of the Americas saw Andrea Dovizioso proving that Ducati’s early season pace could be here to stay, the Italian rider snatching the best time of a wet opening free practice on the final lap of a session that had to be red-flagged due to a stray dog on track.
Normality resumed in the afternoon as the conditions improved and the pace increased, Marc Márquez claiming the fastest lap of the day with a time some three tenths quicker than Cal Crutchlow, without displaying the dominance he has shown at this track over the past couple of seasons.
This morning Eugene Laverty encountered some grip issues on the slippery track. In the dry afternoon session it was teammate Hayden who ran into the most trouble and after a frustrating day all round for both riders they have plenty of work to do tomorrow.
20th Eugene Laverty 2.07.968 (25 laps):
“The feeling was pretty strange today, especially in the direction changes. I had hardly any grip in the left-handers when the track was wet and in the right-handers I had too much grip, which was difficult to manage. We need to work on adjusting this and finding the right balance. Overall the grip levels weren’t great so that made the job of learning the track even harder. We will have to work with the electronics tomorrow to adapt the bike to the conditions here.”
Source: Aspar Media