Tony Arbolino gritted his teeth and put pain to one side when posting the 2^nd fastest time of Moto2 running on Friday at the Thai Grand Prix, while Filip Salac was 16^th.

• Conditions on Friday at the Chang International Circuit were among the toughest of the year. Elf Marc VDS Racing Team riders Tony Arbolino and Filip Salac rode in the afternoon P1 session as track temperatures rose to a punishing 53 degrees.
• The action in Thailand starts on Saturday at 9:25 local time for Practice 2 before qualifying gets underway at 13.45 local time.

/// TONY ARBOLINO, 2^nd – 1’35.410

• Tony’s day got off to a complicated start as he crashed at high speed through Turn 11 in the FP session. He was then in the process of pushing his bike to the pits when he was hit from behind by Zonta van den Goorbergh.
• After a trip to the local hospital for checks on his left ankle, Tony was passed fit for the P1 session. Despite feeling a good deal of discomfort, the 24-year old heroically posted 13 laps, with his 11^th putting him 2^nd, just 0.2 back of pace setter Aron Canet.
• Tony was then given a 3-place grid penalty for Sunday’s Moto2 race as the FIM Stewards judged he shouldn’t have been pushing his bike in the pitlane entrance after the crash at Turn 11.

“Sometimes you need to grit your teeth and give it your all”

“It’s a shame what happened today. It was something we could have avoided but at the same time I couldn’t control the incident on the entry to the pits. Anyway, it is what it is. Fortunately, I felt good on the bike and this helped me to be fast. We set a good lap time in the afternoon. We’ll keep going. I’m 100% sure we’ll suffer physically on Sunday. But this is the business we’re in. Injuries are part of the game and sometimes you need to grit your teeth and give it your all. That’s what we’ll be doing tomorrow as we push for a good qualifying position. I’m confident of being up there with the fastest guys!”

/// FILIP SALAC, 16^th – 1’35.983

• It was a quiet start to the day by Filip as he placed 19^th in the FP session, even if he was only 0.6s slower than the fastest time.
• The Czech rider then spent the afternoon working on improving rear grip and the balance of his bike. He wasn’t able to piece together the perfect lap at the end of P1, which left him 16^th in the P1 classification.

“We just need to polish a few things in order to put a good lap together”

“It was a hot first day here in Thailand! The conditions were challenging out there and the feeling on the bike wasn’t bad. We just need to polish a few things in order to put a good lap together. In both of today’s sessions I didn’t have a fastest sector in my two fastest laps. We aren’t so far away but I feel we need to work on this to make sure we can qualify well tomorrow. I’m confident we can get on the first three rows on the grid if we make a few small changes to the set-up and that will be the aim for Saturday.”