“The feeling during the day was quite positive because I feel good with the bike and also my pace is not so bad with the used tyres, that’s very important for the race. The level of performance is unbelievable, especially from fourth to tenth place – we’re very close. I didn’t ride in a perfect way and I lost some time during my lap, I made some small mistakes and I paid for them, because my position is not fantastic, I’m just ninth. It’s very important to stay in the top-10, because maybe tomorrow in FP3 it can be a little bit more difficult. We have to keep trying because I’m sure somebody will improve, and after that we’ll see. It’s always difficult with the front tyre, because we’re at the limit, so we need to make the right choice and we still have to work on the balance of the bike. I’m very happy to race at 7 o’ clock and not at 9, because the track is better. The only problem is that FP1, FP3 and Warm Up are not very important because you ride them in hotter conditions.”

“Honestly, I don’t feel like this is my best moment. As I said during the test, we’re having some trouble. I didn’t feel good on the bike, but we are working to solve the problems. We tried something different, which – with the hot temperatures – I was liking quite a lot, but this evening it wasn’t working. I did two time-attacks, but I wasn’t feeling comfortable, so we have to continue tomorrow to find a better set-up.”

“It’s great to be back in action, even though it was a bit of a challenging start to the season today. The grip level of the track wasn’t perfect and under these circumstances we usually suffer. We expect that the circuit will provide a better grip session by session, which will help us exploit the strong points of our bike. Most of the problems that we’re facing are caused by a lack of grip. The new schedule is a bit tricky, it has some up and downsides. The format has made FP1, FP3 and the Warm Up session somewhat useless, because the track conditions in the afternoon and evening sessions are quite different, and these aspects need to be carefully considered whilst making set-up changes. Even though we don’t want to completely turn the bike upside down, we have some ideas that we will try tomorrow with both riders.”

“For the first day in Qatar it is quite ok to be inside the top 10. I experienced some issues, which made it difficult to find the same great feeling like I had during the test here. I tried to keep calm and work. It’s just small details, because the balance of the bike is good, but to be as fast as the top guys, we need to understand better how the grip level is changing. We’re working on it and I know that we need to improve tomorrow to be competitive and ready for Q2.”

“In the first Free Practice, I had a lot of confidence and felt really comfortable on the bike. I’m not sure why my feeling was not as good as in FP1 in the second session. We used the soft tyre for the first time, but couldn’t improve a lot. In the end, we went one tenth of a second faster than in the first session. Now, we try to understand the situation, I know, that I have to stay calm and that I have to try to understand the telemetry, therefore I’ll speak with my guys tonight. Anyway, I’m very positive. For tomorrow, I aim to improve further.”