SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH BEST TIMES FOR REDDING AND ESPARGARÓ ON THE FIRST DAY OF PRACTICE AT MISANO
On the first day of practice at Misano in view of the upcoming MotoGP race on Sunday, both Aleix Espargaró and Scott Redding were rather far from the top ten, which is the usual goal of the practice sessions in order to avoid the qualifiers on Saturday and to go straight through to the Q2 session that decides the first four rows on the starting grid.
Espargaró tackled the first day with his new crew chief, Pietro Caprara, and had to reckon with an adaptation process to his RS-GP's latest evolution engine, tested in August right here on this track, but being put through its paces for the first time in an official session. After his time of 1'35.544 in the first session, Aleix improved in the afternoon, finishing with 1'33.322 and now, weather permitting, he will have the last session on Saturday morning to try to get close to tenth place.
In the first session, Redding demonstrated good confidence with his Aprilia, just missing out on the top ten, finishing eleventh just 18 thousandths behind the tenth-place time. In the afternoon, however, partly due to a crash and consequent bike change, he was one of the very few riders who did not improve, so much that he finished seventeenth in the combined standings of the two sessions. Everything will be decided tomorrow for him as well.