Folger pleased by Grand Prix opportunity

German youngster Jonas Folger is enjoying his debut World Championship weekend at the Brno circuit, having won at the Czech venue in an Alpe Adria Cup race at the end of June.

The Red Bull MotoGP Academy rider, who turned 15 on Wednesday, has been given the chance to compete in the Cardion ab Grand Prix Ceske republiky as a wildcard in the single cylinder class - having participated in a number of national championship races this year at MotoGP venues, in addition to Brno, such as Donington and Sachsenring.

Despite finishing 23rd of the 39 riders in Friday´s provisional qualifying session, three seconds behind pace setter Gabor Talmacsi, the talented Academy attendee is learning quickly and is delighted to be in amongst the big boys.

Folger told motogp.com, `I am really happy to be in the World Championship, to ride the bike out here. It is a lot of fun at this level because the riders are a lot faster, you can watch their lines and you can learn from them. So I am really pleased to be here and I am giving my best.´

Talking about the experience of his first day of Grand Prix riding he added, `We had some problems with the front tyre because it started to rain a little bit and when I stayed on the brakes and I wanted to turn the bike it went long (wide), so I couldn´t turn. But that was because we had the wrong tyre on the front so we will see how I do tomorrow.´

In the first Saturday run-out Folger went round 21st fastest on a wet track as he continued his World Championship learning process.