Following the private test which brought together a few teams in Valencia on February 3 and 4, the Ángel Nieto circuit in Jerez today welcomed no less than 37 Moto2 and Moto3 riders under a very Andalusian sun and spring temperatures rising up to 19°.
In the intermediate category of Moto2, there were around fifteen of them battling it out on the track rented by Marc VDS but, as in Valence, it was once again Somkiat Chantra who turned out to be the fastest, 75 thousandths ahead of his teammate Ai Ogura.
The Thai from the Idemitsu Honda Team Asia set a time of 1'42.213 while the best lap in the race belongs to Sam Lowes in 1'41.313, the official record at Remy gardner in 1'40.667. Perhaps because of the wind, the times remained quite modest overall, especially since Lorenzo Baldassarri achieved 1'42.359 with his Yamaha R6 Supersport! A mystery to be solved tomorrow...
Present today were the teams Marc VDS (Sam Lowes / Tony Arbolino), Idemitsu (Ai Ogura / Somkiat Chantra), Dodici Motorsport (Angelo Tagliarini), Italtrans (Lorenzo DallaPorta / Joe Roberts), Gresini (Filip Salač / Alessandro Zaccone) , Intact GP (Marcel Schrötter / Jeremy Alcoba), Forward Racing (Simone Corsi / Marcos Ramírez), RW Racing GP (Barry Baltus / Zonta Van Der Goorbergh) and Evan Bros (Lorenzo Baldassarri / Peter Sebestyen).
In the Moto3 category, Dennis Foggia was much closer to the different references of the circuit. Author of a 1'46.298, the driver of the Leopard Racing team is only two tenths away from the best lap in the race, held by Jaume Masia since 2020 in 1'46.060, while the circuit record belongs to Andrea Migno in 1'44.988.
At the opposite, Ana Carrasco seems to have experienced some difficulties in this return to the category, but let's hope that these were only occasional problems...
Present today were the teams Esponsorama (Matteo Berttele / Elia Bartolini) Snipers Team (Andrea Migno / Alberto Surra), MTA Racing Europa (Ivan Ortolá / Stefano Nepa), CIP (Kaito Toba / Joel Kelso), SIC58 Squadra Corse (Ricardo Rossi / Lorenzo Fellon), Prüstel GP (Xavier Artigas / Carlos Tatay), Max Racing (John McPhee / Ayumi Sasaki), Vision Track HRT (Joshua Whatley / Scott Odgen), Idemitsu (Mario Aji / Akira Furosato), Leopard Racing (Tatsuki Suzuki / Dennis Foggia) and Boe (David Muñoz / Ana Carrasco).
Tomorrow will be the last opportunity to ride, still from 10:00 a.m. to 18:00 p.m., before the official test in Portimao from February 19 to 21.
