Pacesetter Simoncelli states intentions

Metis Gilera’s World Champion Simoncelli hopes to make up for his early 2009 disappointments this weekend at the Gran Premio bwin.com de España and he was going about things the right way on Saturday morning as he topped the 250cc FP2 timesheet.

Improving on his Friday pace by around a second to move up the charts from eighth yesterday, Simoncelli’s 1’43.474s best time will give him confidence ahead of qualifying as he seeks to put himself in position to score his first points of the year at Jerez on Sunday. The Italian was unaffected by a late crash at the end of the session.

Second as he was last week at Motegi and in FP1 on Friday, the in-form Japanese rider Hiroshi Aoyama (Scot Racing Team) played a close second fiddle again in this session, trailing Simoncelli by just 0.082s. Mapfre Aspar’s Álvaro Bautista was third fastest, two tenths down on Simoncelli, with the top three already looking likely to play key roles in Sunday’s race.

Álex Debón (Aeroport Castello-Blusens) and Mike di Meglio (Mapfre Aspar Team) were also top five representatives, followed respectively by Héctor Barberá (Pepe World Team Aprilia), Karel Abraham (Carbion AB Motoracing), Gabor Talmacsi (Balatonring Team), Mattia Pasini (Team Toth Aprilia) and Héctor Faubel (Valencia CF - Honda SAG) in a top ten featuring four Spaniards.