Marco Simoncelli leads the free practice sessions at Estoril – MotoGP Update
Italian Marco Simoncelli is determined to claim the podium finish at Estoril, in the bwin Grande Premio de Portugal, to be held on May 1, 2011. The San Carlo Honda Gresini rider led both the free practice sessions on Friday and set the bench mark for others
to beat.
In the current 2011 MotoGP season, Simoncelli is still without a podium finish in his premier class career, despite being fast on the circuit. In last season’s Portuguese event, he missed the third place finish with just 0.059 seconds.
Although he was leading the day, the Italian still felt obnoxious about the fall he had while leading the grid at Spanish round, held in early April. Simoncelli had a fall on Friday’s free practice session, from which he came out uninjured. He is not worried
about the couple of falls he had, but is confident of not repeating the mistake, in case it rains.
The Italian rider after the free practice session, said, “The day went well and I am happy, I was fast already in the morning but with few small changes we were able to stay at the top in the afternoon. I had a little crash but I'm not worried because I
know exactly what I did wrong.”
‘Super Sic’ has been fast and good at the Estoril circuit and the current season seems more promising for Simoncelli and the Honda satellite team. He recalled his last year’s performance at the Portuguese venue, where he shortly missed the podium.
The San Carlo rider feels that now is the time for him to secure the first podium finish of his MotoGP career. He focuses to improve two or three places, better than his last year’s attempt.
Dry conditions on race day can prove to be better for the team. The engineers used the same bike settings that were applied at the Spanish round, which gave good results. It is yet to be seen how the bike responds to rain, but the team expects not to have
same issues at the second round.
Honda Satellite Team Manager, Fausto Gresini, also expressed his satisfaction and said, “We are really happy with Marco's position and pace. He is motivated and has a good feeling with the bike. Obviously we have to improve but the base is already very good.”
Gresini also added that the teams’ testing was not hindered by Simoncelli’s fall and he was able to set good lap times on his second RC212V, with lots of laps on the metre. With all the past experiences from last season and also the second race of the 2011
season, the Italian will surely want to put up a good show this time, on the circuit in Portugal.