Difficult afternoon for Elías on home ground

Despite the home support Toni Elías does not count Catalunya as one of his best tracks and that showed again on the first day of his home GP - as he lapped well off the pace, like his San Carlo Honda Gresini colleague Alex de Angelis, in the first MotoGP free practice session of the weekend.

Toni Elías – 15th

“We haven’t started well but it is early and we have to stay positive. We have a lot of work to do on the chassis, because there is far too much load on the front. I know I am always complaining about that but at this circuit in particular it is just too much. We don’t have anything new to test so it is down to us to keep coming up with new ideas, experimenting and trying to find a solution with what we have. Unfortunately sometimes you have to go down the wrong road in order to realise which is the right one so hopefully that’s the case for us today. My Gaudi helmet design is from when we raced here in 2007 and I decided to wear it again simply because I love it!”

Alex de Angelis – 16th

“We’re still struggling for rear grip, as we have been doing all season, and the bike is sliding around a lot but the truth is that this is our only problem. We really need to sort it out because other than that the bike feels great. The engine is really strong and in a straight line we are really fast but we need to transfer that to the corners. We had a little problem with the front forks in the first part of the session, they weren’t working well and I ran wide in one corner but luckily the run-off was asphalt and I was able to keep it upright. We changed the forks and it improved things a lot, even on a used tyre, but we still have plenty to do tomorrow.”