POWER ELECTRONICS ASPAR TEAM READY FOR CRT’S EUROPEAN DEBUT MotoGP begins continental road trip as Jerez hosts second round of season The POWER ELECTRONICS ASPAR TEAM return to familiar territory this weekend after their historic CRT debut under floodlights in Qatar three weeks ago. The second round of the season takes place at Jerez, where the Italian-made ART machine has already completed hundreds of laps in preseason testing around a circuit that is more favourable to its characteristics. After missing out to their closest rivals at Losail, the POWER ELECTRONICS crew are hopeful their CRT machine can be the first across the line and book a place in parc fermé at their home circuit this Sunday, whilst the gap to the factory machines should also be smaller at this track, adding extra interest to the race. Team riders Randy de Puniet and Aleix Espargaró have plenty of data to fall back on this weekend and they are both looking forward to trying Bridgestone’s new ‘tyre 21’. The latest evolution of the 2012 front tyre features changes to its construction designed to improve rider feel and warm-up time and it has been built according to feedback from preseason testing. In addition to their standard allocation of nine regular fronts at the Spanish Grand Prix the riders will have two units of the new tyre available in the harder ‘race’ compound only.With weather forecasters predicting a repeat of the rainy conditions from last year’s race, Bridgestone have also decided that the wet tyre option for the weekend will be made from the hard compound. Since Qatar the Japanese rubber suppliers have also proposed a different tread for the wet tyre so if after the first free practice the riders are in agreement that they need a different kind of compound, Bridgestone will be able to supply it with the permission of the Race Director. Randy de Puniet: “I have finished on the podium here in the 250cc class but never in MotoGP, even though I have always been fast in practice. We had some good tests with the CRT bike here in the winter and our objective this weekend is to be the first of the new bikes home. I was lacking a little confidence in Qatar, mainly because of the characteristics of the track, but it should be a different scenario at Jerez. I even think we could be very close to some of the factory MotoGP guys and the new Bridgestone front will definitely help us. If it rains I won’t be bothered because our bike is easy on the wet tyres.” Aleix Espargaró: “I am very motivated for this weekend. I left Qatar feeling disappointed that we’d been unable to make progress all weekend and didn’t achieve anything in the race. Bridgestone have the new ‘tyre 21’ for us here, which should solve our chattering problem completely. We were faster than our rivals at Jerez during the IRTA tests so we’ll be looking to confirm that this weekend.”