Aspar Team Moto2 test Valencia Circuito Ricardo Tormo 12 February 2013 NICO TEROL STRIKES FIRST AS MOTO2 PRESEASON GETS UNDERWAY Aspar Team rider starts the year as the fastest rider on track with Torres half a second behind him in seventh After a long and quiet winter the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia was ringing to the sound of four-stroke Grand Prix engines again today as the 2013 preseason got underway for the Moto2 and Moto3 classes. 32 riders from the intermediate category lapped from 10am until 5pm, an hour of which was kept exclusively for them. Three Spaniards dominated the time sheets and only two of them were able to break the 1’36 barrier, Nico Terol leading the way from compatriots Julián Simón and Pol Espargaró. Aspar Team rider Terol started the new year in the same form that he finished 2012 and his podium finish in the final round of the season here at Valencia remains fresh in the memory. His best effort today of 1’35.926 is well inside the circuit record (1’36.611) and close to the outright Moto2 lap record (1’35.191). It was set on last year’s bike during the exclusive Moto2 session (2pm-3pm). Tomorrow he will run comparative tests with the new machine. Jordi Torres has already started work on his 2013 chassis and made gradual progress with the set-up to finish just half a second shy of his team-mate. 1st Nico Terol 1.35.926: “I have enjoyed the winter and trained hard, which has helped me start out with a great feeling from the first day of testing here at Valencia. It was hard to get comfortable because it was windy and the track was dirty but I am happy with the feeling I had with last year’s bike. We wanted to try the 2012 version today and move onto the new chassis tomorrow so we can compare. We set a fast time, the fastest of the day, but the main thing was that my times were consistent and my feeling was good despite not riding for a while. We all know you don’t get anything without working for it in Moto2 so it is good to start out so strongly. The podium at Valencia was the step up in quality that I was missing last year and it gave me the motivation to work hard this winter. So far the results are showing so I hope this continues.” 7th Jordi Torres 1.36.457: “I struggled a bit to get a feeling for the bike this morning, basically because it has been two months since I rode it. I have done a little bit of enduro over the winter but other than that I’ve hardly touched a motorcycle so we started off slowly and built our pace without taking unnecessary risks. I started to feel more confident and comfortable this afternoon. We decided to get straight down to work with the 2013 chassis and it was a long day of testing all the new material. The good thing is that the new chassis offers a lot of options in terms of playing around with the stiffness although today we just focused on trying different geometry settings to get the bike working better. It’s great to finally be a full-time Grand Prix rider at last and all this work in preseason will serves me really well when the racing gets underway.”