Team Suzuki Press Office – September 2.
Maverick Viñales – 2nd.
Aleix Espargaró – 8th.
Team SUZUKI ECSTAR’s Maverick Viñales impressed in the opening Free Practice sessions today at the Octo British GP in the UK as team-mate Aleix Espargaró recorded eighth position.
With rain clouds looming over the Silverstone Circuit, and air temperatures of 16 degrees, Viñales topped the timesheets in FP1 with a time of 2’02.483 with Espargaró 12th on 2’04.443. But in the afternoon session, and a fraction warmer at 19 degrees, Viñales’ recorded a 2’01.7212-lap which gave him second position overall. Espargaró also improved by more-than two seconds to secure eighth position with a time of 2’02.364.
Davide Brivio – Team Manager:
“Today Maverick had a positive day both in the morning and in the afternoon, where he felt confident with the bike and his lap times were always amongst the fastest, not only on a single lap, but also on pace. We’re also happy for Aleix because he improved a lot in the afternoon since the morning and he managed to get much closer to the top, although he seems to have some room for improvements. We have developed a good base set-up for the dry conditions, we’ll have to wait and see how the weather will develop, although I think we could also exploit the positive work we’ve done today in case of wet conditions.”