Top Three for Cortese as Yamaha Start Strongly in Thailand

“It was a solid start for us today here in Thailand. This track is a little bit less technical than a lot of tracks that we race at the lap times are always really close, as you can see from the fact that the four Yamaha riders are all close together on the timesheet. I was quite happy with today, I managed to string together a lot of laps at a very consistent pace but we do still need to find some more small improvements, especially mid-corner to exit, where I feel like I’m running out of track a little bit. That’s what I’ll be focussing on tonight and, hopefully, tomorrow we’ll see some improvement in this area.”

“This is a track I enjoy riding and I always seem to go well here. This morning I felt good from the start, with just a few small changes to the bike enough to see me finish the session in third place. I was happy with that. This afternoon we tried a few more changes to try and improve the turning and increase the amount of rear grip available, with mixed results initially. However, we made some small improvements towards the end of the session and I was able to improve my lap time on my final run. The pace is there, as is the consistency, so I’m satisfied with where we are right now, but I’m missing a bit the feeling with the front still, so that’s something we need to look at tomorrow. If we can put everything together then we’ll be in a strong position for the first race.”

“Today was a very positive one for me and the team. We started this morning with the set-up from Phillip Island as the base and, of course, we had to make adjustments to suit the characteristics of this track, with its heavy braking zones. After FP1 we sat down and started to work in the right direction ahead of FP2. Of course I’m happy to finish P3 today, but I’m also realistic and keeping my feet on the ground, because the race is tomorrow. We need to keep calm and keep working. If we can do this then the results will come, of that I’m sure. A big thanks to Yamaha and the team for their incredible support, as this is also a big motivation for me.”

“I’m a little bit concerned at the moment, as I’m experiencing the same issues that I had here last year. The bike is very unstable on the straight and I can’t understand why. On a new tyre the first lap is good, but then on the second the stability problem appears and then gets worse with each further lap. Maybe it’s a combination of my size and weight together with the casing of the tyre causing the issue, but I don’t really know. It’s strange that I should have the same problem on two completely different bikes though. We will sit down tonight and go through the data to see if we can find a solution for tomorrow.”