Good progression Bendsneyder, encouraging start Biesiekirski

Bo Bendsneyder made considerable progress on the first day of the Grand Prix of Emilia-Romagna. The Dutchman was considerably faster on the Misano World Circuit than a week ago. It was the first time in Misano for his new teammate Piotr Biesiekirski. The Pole made an encouraging start in his GP debut.

A week ago, Bendsneyder’s best time was 1.37.8 in QP1. Today he already went well below in FP1 (1.37.275; 18th) and in FP2 he improved his time again to 1.37.142 (22nd). The difference with the top was also much smaller. The influence of the new softer tire available to Moto2 riders is not entirely clear.
For Piotr Biesiekirski, the emphasis was on getting used to and learning. The young Pole, who replaces Jesko Raffin, has never raced on Misano or on the NTS before. No miracles could be expected from him, but Biesiekirski managed to take more than a second off his time in FP2 compared to FP1. With 1.40.622 he was 4.666 off of the fastest time.

Bo Bendsneyder: “Compared to last week, we have definitely taken a step. The difference with the top is a lot smaller. We have found the connection to go towards the points. I am very happy with that. For just the first day, this is a good starting point. It is now important to fine-tune so that we will hopefully be a bit closer tomorrow.”

Piotr Biesiekirski: “Misano turned out to be a beautiful but also a really difficult circuit. Probably one of the most difficult on the calendar, but we’ve been improving with every lap today so that was good. I went wide a couple of times on my last exit and wasn’t able to improve my time on the final four laps, but the feeling is quite good and the team is great. The bike feels good and was set up to handle very easily today, which helped me to learn the track, but we’ll fine-tune it for tomorrow and work towards more of a race setup.”