ALCAoIZ, Spain: QMMF Racing Team’s rider Anthony West had to settle for 24th place in the combined practice times for day one at the Grand Prix of Aragón.
The 33-year-old Australian had a promising start with 18th place in the morning session, but wasn’t able to improve on his lap time in the afternoon, when he ran into problems with rear tyre grip.
Since there was not enough time to make the necessary changes to the set-up of his Speed Up prototype during the session, West and his team were focused to turn things around.
GP rookie Roman Ramos was right behind his experienced team-mate on 25th place and had all reasons to be happy about a strong start at his home Grand Prix.
The 23-year-old from Santander, who was a newcomer to most of the circuits in this year’s racing calendar, was able to put his track knowledge at MotorLand Aragon to good use straight away, taking 26th place in the first free practice session.
In the afternoon, he improved by eight hundredths of a second and moved up one spot in the combined times.
“Finally we have arrived at a circuit that I know,” said Ramos.
“It’s nice to be able to start here at my home race and I was training as hard as I possibly could to be well prepared for this challenge,” he added. However, Ramos said there was still a need for improvement.
“There are still some improvements pending, we also need to find a bit more speed, but all in all,” he said before expressing satisfaction with the bike.
“I am very happy with the bike and with the work the team is putting in. All the effort is finally starting to pay off. I look forward to attack in qualifying,” he added.
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