For both Garrett Gerloff and Kohta Nozane, San Juan represents a brand new challenge. Gerloff, who enjoyed a solid weekend in the last round at Portimão, took advantage of the first day to adapt to the Argentinian circuit as well as to his new Crew Chief, Damiano Evangelisti. The American was immediately competitive in the morning with a sixth place in Free Practice 1 (1’39.589), then further improved his pace in FP2, but an infraction of the track limits at Turn 16 got his fastest time of the day cancelled. He was still ninth overall (1'38.879).
2021 rookie Nozane, instead, took longer to get used to the new circuit but his improvement during the course of the day was impressive. In the morning session, the Japanese rider took his time to learn the San Juan circuit and ended the session in 18th place (1'42.102). He then chose to be more aggressive in the afternoon and, despite still finishing in 17th position, he was more than two seconds faster than in FP1 (1'39.857), having almost halved the gap to the leader.
For Friday's combined times, click here.
