Barrier 3rd, Black 8th

The free practice session on Saturday morning went quite well from both riders of the team with the 5th position for Sylvain Barrier and the 11th for Gregg Black.

Sylvain was 1.3 faster than on Friday and Gregg 1.6 which is very positive. Of course, the other riders progressed too, with the most impressive been the leader Xavier Simeon (Ducati) with a new unofficial lap record of 1’33.2.

The qualifying session started with a wet track of which the racing line was drying little by little. But the time the riders could use was too short for the tarmac to dry completely. Sylvain Barrier did a great lap and was on pole position with 8 minutes to go!

Later the leader of the championship Xavier Simeon passed him, but Sylvain retook the lead with Gregg Black in third after having been for a while in provisional pole position! Finally Barrier finished in 3rd position and Black in 8th, which makes the team hopeful for the race tomorrow.

Gregg Black: “We worked well this morning on the settings for the dry weather. We were not too happy this afternoon when it started raining. I started with rain tyres. I was careful in the beginning and then I got a good rhythm. I stopped in the pits and started again with the same rain tyres just to secure a correct qualifying time. Then I put a dry tyre on the rear. I was not so confident at first, but things went better. I thought about using a dry tyre on the front, but I don’t know yet the category so well. It was a little mistake not to use a dry tyre on the front. I am happy. I was on provisional pole position for a while and I am happy with the second row.”

Sylvain Barrier: “The beginning of the session was wet so I used rain tyres. I was 6th on the wet. We changed the tyres and I was the fastest. I did a few laps to check the track and I put a dry tyre on the rear. It was quicker and I finished 3rd. It was difficult to see if the modifications we did to the shock this morning were efficient, but we’ll have the warm up session to get ready for the race tomorrow. Anyhow, it went in the right direction. I am happy, even if we didn’t use a dry tyre on the front. We just didn’t have enough time to do it. But it went OK.”

Michel Garnier (team manager): “I am happy. It was some kind of poker game and we played it well. Sylvain and Gregg are good riders on a wet track. It went well for us with a 1st and a 2nd row. We have to confirm tomorrow during the race. So far, it’s a good result.”