FIM Moto2 World Championship Motorland, Aragon September 16 Free Practice One Results (all using Honda engines and Dunlop tires): 1. Marc MARQUEZ, Spain (SUTER), 1:54.857 2. Aleix ESPARGARO, Spain (PONS KALEX), 1:54.880 3. Andrea IANNONE, Italy (SUTER), 1:55.160 4. Scott REDDING, Great Britain (SUTER), 1:55.173 5. Alex DE ANGELIS, San Marino (MOTOBI), 1:55.382 6. Simone CORSI, Italy (FTR), 1:55.416 7. Anthony WEST, Australia (MZ-RE HONDA), 1:55.433 8. Stefan BRADL, Germany (KALEX), 1:55.631 9. Bradley SMITH, Great Britain (TECH 3), 1:55.656 10. Yuki TAKAHASHI, Japan (MORIWAKI), 1:55.658 11. Mattia PASINI, Italy (FTR), 1:55.664 12. Michele PIRRO, Italy (MORIWAKI), 1:55.731 13. Pol ESPARGARO, Spain (FTR), 1:55.775 14. Thomas LUTHI, Switzerland (SUTER), 1:55.817 15. Dominique AEGERTER, Switzerland (SUTER), 1:55.877 16. Esteve RABAT, Spain (FTR), 1:55.927 17. Alex BALDOLINI, Italy (PONS KALEX), 1:56.068 18. Yonny HERNANDEZ, Colombia (FTR), 1:56.172 19. Ratthapark WILAIROT, Thailand (FTR), 1:56.289 20. Julian SIMON, Spain (SUTER), 1:56.397 21. Claudio CORTI, Italy (SUTER), 1:56.526 22. Jules CLUZEL, France (SUTER), 1:56.542 23. Ricard CARDUS, Spain (MORIWAKI), 1:56.598 24. Mike DI MEGLIO, France (TECH 3), 1:56.689 25. Jordi TORRES, Spain (SUTER), 1:56.744 26. Xavier SIMEON, Belgium (TECH 3), 1:56.885 27. Santiago HERNANDEZ, Colombia (FTR), 1:57.071 28. Max NEUKIRCHNER, Germany (MZ-RE HONDA), 1:57.159 29. Raffaele DE ROSA, Italy (SUTER), 1:57.180 30. Mika KALLIO, Finland (SUTER), 1:57.321 31. Randy KRUMMENACHER, Switzerland (KALEX), 1:57.560 32. Tomoyoshi KOYAMA, Japan (SUTER), 1:57.576 33. Joan OLIVE, Spain (FTR), 1:57.897 34. Kenny NOYES, USA (FTR), 1:57.922 35. Robertino PIETRI, Venezuela (SUTER), 1:58.014 36. Valentin DEBISE, France (FTR), 1:58.085 37. Sergio GADEA, Spain (MORIWAKI), 1:58.492 38. Mashel AL NAIMI, Qata (MORIWAKI), 1:59.433 39. Elena ROSELL, Spain (SUTER), 2:01.049 More, from a press release issued by JiR Moto2 Team: GP of Aragon, free practice Today saw a shorter working day at the Motorland Aragon circuit, thanks to an electricity blackout. The Spanish circuit, voted last year as the best organized of the World Championship, was affected by a loss of power just at the beginning of the MotoGP second free practice session, forcing the organizers to cancel the afternoon session for both MotoGP and Moto2 classes. The work lost today will be partially recovered tomorrow with a longer session than usual. During the only session this morning, the Sammarinese rider Alex De Angelis and his MotoBI managed to obtain a good result on the stopwatch, closing in fifth place with 1’55.382s. More, from a press release issued by ItalTrans/AGP Racing: Grand Prix of Aragon Alcaniz (E) September 16th 18th, 2011 Free Practice Claudio Corti (1’56″526 – 21°) Robertino Pietri (1’58″014 – 35°) A sudden black-out at the Argon venue halved the first practice day. Only the morning sessions took place; in the afternoon, while the 125cc riders have been able to do their job, Moto2 and MotoGP slots have been canceled. This is a considerable handicap to those squads Italtrans among them – that more than others have absolute necessity to test. Days before the GP, the team decided and designed an action to modify the air intake and the flowing. Today’s testing would be fundamental to collect data and prepare the bike for the qualifying session. Tomorrow, the morning practice will be longer (from 11.00 to 12.15) but the team’s schedule has been widely modified. Luigi Pansera (Team Manager): “We decided to modify intake and flowing as a consequence of what was told us by Claudio Corti, who often reported problems with the cooling water temperature and a poor engine performance. Today we had just not enough time to judge whether what we did is leading us in the right direction, but could judge a slight improvement in power. We hope we are going to have a full working day tomorrow, and collect all the needed data”. More, from a press release issued by QMMF Racing Team: Ricky Cardús tests and breaks new chassis Al-Naimi in search for better braking performance QMMF Racing Team rider Ricky Cardús made a big step in the right direction when he tested a new chassis on his Moriwaki prototype and found much-needed grip and traction on the corner exits. However, a crash towards the end of the session left the chassis with extensive damage and spoiled all hopes of using the new bike at his home race at Aragón on Sunday. Team-mate Mashel Al-Naimi also crashed in the first practice session and was left without a chance of improving on this 38th place in the afternoon: A power failure due to a broken transformer caused a cancellation of the second free practice session. On Saturday, the teams will have extended sessions in order to make up for the track time lost. “With two crashes, one of each rider, we had business as usual – we have a 100 percent crash rate so far this season”, said team coordinator Luis Solano. “Luckily, Ricky was able to confirm the qualities of the new chassis and the new swingarm before his bike got damaged. He found a good feeling with the new bike and I am happy that the Moriwaki people keep working hard to improve the bike and to help our team. As far as Mashel goes, we still have valuable data from our tests here at Aragón a few months ago and we expect him to repeat the good lap times from this test!” Mashel Al-Naimi 38th in 1.59,433 “I had a good start as I felt really comfortable on the bike even though I used the hard tyre compound and had a few slides on the first five laps. But when I came in for some small changes on the set-up, I lost this good feeling and didn’t feel comfortable any more, mainly because I lost a lot of tyre grip. I went out with a new tyre for my last run but collided with another rider and crashed. My aim for tomorrow is to understand what’s wrong with my position on the bike. I don’t seem to have enough power for real hard-braking action and maybe my contact with the fuel tank isn’t good enough. I hope to make a better result tomorrow!” Ricky Cardús – 23rd in 1.56,598 “I am a bit sad and disappointed because we got new parts from Moriwaki for this race and they got destroyed due to a riding error. I passed a slower rider and ran a bit wide, which got me onto the dirty part of the track and I crashed. The updated chassis that felt so good and gives me more grip and more traction, broke in half and is not usable any more. Now we have to go back to the old chassis and try to find a set-up that will give us a similar kind of performance. We will have the new chassis again at the next race in Japan, so in this respect there is no problem!” More, from a press release issued by Marc VDS Racing Team: POWER CUT THWARTS REDDING AND KALLIO AT ARAGON The Marc VDS Racing Team experienced a frustrating and unusual start to the Motorland Aragon round today after a major power outage left organisers with no option but to cancel this afternoon’s second Moto2 practice session. The start of the second session had already been postponed by more than two hours when the intermittent electricity supply saw the MotoGP and Moto2 sessions cancelled. Following the severe disruption to this afternoon’s schedule, Redding and Kallio will take part in an extended 75-minute practice tomorrow morning to make up for the lost time on track. The disruption prevented Redding from building on his outstanding start to round 13 of the 2011 World Championship. Redding immediately was able to set a fast pace this morning and in hot and humid conditions that saw air temperatures peak at 26 degrees, the 18-year-old finished fourth quickest and just 0.013s away from the top three. Having raced to fantastic fifth place finishes in the previous two races in Indianapolis and Misano, Redding is confident he will be able to battle for his first podium of the season in Sunday’s 21-lap race. The technical glitches that hit the state-of-the-art Motorland Aragon left Kallio frustrated, as he was unable to make major improvements to the set-up of his Suter MMXI machine. He opted to use a new front-end set-up that he successfully tested in Valencia last week in this morning’s session. But the improvements didn’t translate to the technical 3.155 miles Motorland Aragon layout and he was left down in 30th position with a best time of 1.57.321. Scott Redding #45 – 1.55.173 – 17-laps – 4th position “I felt really good immediately this morning and it was nice to pick up where we left off in Indy and Misano. The best thing is that I am now feeling very comfortable on the bike and I never feel like I’m in any trouble or pushing to the limit a bit too much. It was a shame about the second practice being cancelled but we don’t have any control over that. It would have been nice to get out this afternoon and work on a couple of small issues we’d like to improve but the extra track time will help us tomorrow. I had a small chatter issue but I’m sure with some changes to the front forks we can sort that out and if we can find a bit more rear grip out of the slow corners we can much faster and aim for at least a second row start.” Mika Kallio #36 – 1.57.321 – 16 – laps – 30th position “We took a big gamble this morning and unfortunately it just didn’t work out. At the test in Valencia last week we tried a different front fork position and weight distribution setting for the front-end. It was a positive step in Valencia but at this track it just didn’t work at all. The plan for this afternoon was to put the setting back to the same as we finished the race in Misano. But obviously the problems with the power supply meant we couldn’t confirm that, so we’ll have to see tomorrow. My lap time wasn’t that fast but I also used the same set of tyres for the whole session, and listening to the comments from Dunlop this wasn’t the best option for the rear.” Pete Benson – Scott Redding crew chief “We came out of the blocks well this morning and the bike felt pretty decent for Scott from the first few laps. He was really close to the top three and we were really confident we could battle at the top this afternoon with a couple of improvements we planned. But obviously that didn’t happen, so we’ll have to wait and see if the changes we made work tomorrow. We need to find a little bit more time in the first and last sectors because Scott is really fast in the second and third splits. We had a bit of front chatter today that we need to focus on ironing out because that’s pretty unusual for us this year. We haven’t suffered from it too much and we need to improve that for Scott because he relies on the front-end so much. To be fourth and so close to the top three is a positive start and we’ve definitely carried on the momentum gained from Indy and Misano. Scott is riding with the level of confidence he had at the end of last season, so it is a shame it has taken us so long to figure out how to get the bike performing how he likes it.”