Gerloff Immediately Quick, Nozane Looking for More Confidence at Navarra

20-08-2021

Gerloff Immediately Quick, Nozane Looking for More Confidence at Navarra

Two months after the June test, the GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team returned to Navarra on Friday for the first-ever FIM Superbike World Championship round at the Spanish track, with Garrett Gerloff going fourth fastest in scorching temperatures.

The GRT Yamaha squad used Friday’s free practice sessions to work with the data collected during the test, to try to give the riders the best possible setup for their Yamaha R1 WorldSBKs. For Gerloff, his weekend started off well, going fourth fastest in Free Practice 1 (1’38.082), and the American was feeling even more comfortable during the afternoon, before an odd crash at Turn 4 cut his session short. He was still fifth fastest (1’38.571) and remains very confident ahead of the rest of the weekend.

For Nozane, instead, the information collected in the June test was limited, as he had injured himself only 20 laps into the first day. Therefore, his mission for today was to work on his race pace, despite the limited data to rely on. He was 17th in the morning (1’40.197) but he was then one of the few riders able to improve their lap time in FP2, which he finished in 16th place (1’39.826). His feeling also improved in the afternoon, and the Japanese hopes to keep moving forward tomorrow.

For Friday's combined times, click here.

Garrett Gerloff: P4 – 1’38.082

GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team

It wasn’t a bad day and I am really happy with the progress we made. In FP2 we made a big step forward compared to FP1, but we weren’t able to capitalise on it because of a crash that didn’t allow me to finish the session. It was a weird crash: there is a big bump in that point that we hit every lap, but for some reason on that lap I lost the grip on my front tyre while going through it. I don’t exactly know why, because I did everything the same way as the laps before. This track is very similar to Portimao in the first sector, apart from the surface. The grip isn’t too bad but there are a lot of bumps around the circuit that you don’t see on TV, which makes it more challenging to find the right setup. It’s a nice track and I am liking it so far this weekend. Three Yamahas are at the front, which demonstrates again that the R1 is the best bike on the grid, all around. It just does everything really well and gets along easily with very different riding styles, as you can see yourself when looking at Razgatlioglu, me, Locatelli, or Nozane. This weekend I feel good and I will try to do the best I can.

Kohta Nozane: P17 – 1’39.826

GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team

I could only run 20 laps on this track during testing two months ago because then I crashed and injured my middle finger. It’s not a good memory for me, but today in FP1 I felt okay and I worked on finding the right tyre compound for the race. In FP2, I worked on the long run; my pace is still not good enough but step by step I am improving, and maybe we have found the correct tyre compound for the race. It was a good Friday, tomorrow we will try to make another step in the right direction.