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Marco Bezzecchi is facing his last weekend as a VR46 Racing Team rider in Barcelona. From Tuesday he will in fact be riding the Aprilia Factory, for a new phase of his career. For now there remains one last dance with the Ducati GP23, with the hope of conclusing a great adventure with a good result. And if a good day dawns, the second time at the end of the day can mean a lot to Bezzecchi.
"A good Friday, honestly I wouldn't have expected it so positive so I would say better this way - said Marco - Here there are always strange grip conditions, but in this period it's also a bit cold so it's really difficult to put temperature especially in the front tire. Especially on the left side."
But when the tires then find the right range how do things go?
"When you can get the tires up to temperature, the situation becomes similar to the other times. That is, you can't stay upright!"
In FP1 what problems did you have with the bike?
"This morning we had some little problems with some alarms on the dashboard, but luckily it was actually nothing serious. We lost some time, though, and in fact it didn't go very well this morning. But at least we got everything sorted after that."
Martìn picked you today in FP2, maybe he understood your potential?
"Actually I picked Martìn, but he didn't want to tow me! I wanted to stick to Jorge because on the time attack he is so fast. But he didn't want to pass, so he was passing time and I told myself that if I waited much longer my tires would get cold. So I thought I might put the bike on the ground...and I started to push. Luckily Jorge didn't follow me."
There has been quite a flurry of Ducati engineers in your box, is there anything new technically?
"Simply compared to May, which is when we were here last, the basic set-up has become different because of the work done during the year and also because of my riding needs. But otherwise everything is similar to the rest of the season."
Michelin brought a lot of material, does that help?
"It's not bad to have a wide selection when there are difficult conditions. For sure it takes more time to understand them all well, because they are 4 compounds in front and 3 in the back. But in my opinion Michelin has done a great job of bringing so many solutions, especially the asymmetric ones. Here warming up the left side is difficult. For the rear I basically didn't have the time to try them all, but the ones I tried I liked. Tomorrow I will try to do some more work to figure out which direction to go."
Did you feel any particular emotions this morning?
"I would say it was the same as other Fridays."
Strong in free practice, what do you lack to be fast in the race as well especially at the beginning?
"I'm missing the early laps, I'm struggling with new tires in the race. In practice I'm going strong often with more used tires, then maybe I put on the new tire and lose time, then I start behind on the grid and that's when it gets tough. In general I've always struggled this year with new tires, ever since winter testing. That has been the biggest problem during the year for me."
