Sam Lowes enjoyed a solid’s day work at Silverstone, making important afternoon improvements to finish Friday in 9^th, while Tony Arbolino plans to make some set-up changes after placing 15^th.

• After a colossal five-week summer break, Moto2 was back in action at the historic Silverstone Circuit on Friday with riders enjoying two sessions to get back up to speed.
• Conditions were typically British, with cloudy skies and cold temperatures greeting the Elf Marc VDS Racing Team riders in both sessions. Results were important, as heavy rain is predicted for Saturday, meaning improving practice times could be difficult.

/// SAM LOWES, 9^th – 2’05.264

• Sam started his home GP by posting a long 19-lap run in P1 to get his feelings back after the long break, with his best time of 2’05.982 enough for 8^th place.
• In the afternoon, the Briton worked on gearing and the balance of the bike to improve his overall feeling and rhythm. On his second exit he felt a big improvement, and feels he and his team have found a positive direction to work in for the rest of the weekend.

“I’m missing a little bit but it isn’t a lot”

“Honestly, I was struggling a little bit earlier. But on the second run in the afternoon, I was quite happy on used tyres. Sure, I’m missing a little bit but it isn’t a lot. There are two or three guys that are really strong, but we have a good direction now. It was really important to get that second run in with used tyres in P2 because the conditions tomorrow aren’t supposed to be good. We made a really nice step and I think we can use that data to improve in a good way, even if we don’t get to use it tomorrow because of the weather. Silverstone is always complicated. With the cooler, windy conditions it’s always difficult to keep the tyre temperature up. This direction we took will also be good to help me with that. Overall, it was a positive day. Obviously, I want to be faster but it was a complicated day after five weeks off. I think everybody will admit it was difficult to feel really good. I can be relatively happy. Even if tomorrow is wet, we now know what we can do.”

/// TONY ARBOLINO, 15^th – 2’05.745

• Tony started the weekend solidly, placing 11^th in P1. The 23-year old wasn’t entirely happy with the feeling on his machine, which required some set-up tweaks before the afternoon.
• Tony’s team changed the balance of his bike for the afternoon to give the current World Championship leader extra front-end feel. After placing 15^th, he is confident further changes can bring him back toward the leading names on Saturday.

“We are working on the flowing parts of the track”

“Physically and mentally, I’m feeling as good as if I had not taken five weeks off. So I am happy to come back motivated as always, with a positive mindset. We’ve been working a lot with my crew to have a good base set-up to start with from the morning but we faced some small problems. I wasn’t feeling comfortable so we made some changes to the bike. We 99% knew it was going to work in a good way, but it also didn’t go as expected. This made us a bit worried. But overall, I’m not stressed. There is still a long way to Sunday. We need to keep working and check the data to see which is the best way to adapt for the next two days. It’s in the flowing parts of the track where we’re working to feel a bit more comfortable. We need to feel better there and then our time will come.”