With the start of the new Moto2 World Championship campaign less than two weeks away, the Elf Marc VDS Racing Team was busy starting its final preparations at the Circuito de Jerez-Angel Nieto today.

• Day one of an official three-day test in Andalusia was a busy and productive affair for Tony Arbolino and Filip Salac, who were both keen to take advantage of the dry track time available after rain disrupted a two-day session in Portimao last weekend.
• Arbolino and Salac completed 118 laps between them and both were satisfied with progress made as they worked through a range of set-up options on their Kalex machinery.
• Arbolino and Salac will be back on track tomorrow and Friday before they head off to Doha for the opening round of 2024 at the Lusail International Circuit on March 10.

/// TONY ARBOLINO: 12^th, 1:41.677, 56 laps

• The Italian spent the first two sessions on track today working to gain front end feeling and confidence in Jerez’s high-speed corners.
• The hard work with his crew certainly paid off as Arbolino managed to improve his times by almost a second during the day and he finished only half-a-second off the fastest time in 12^th position.
• Arbolino was confident he could have lapped considerably faster than his best time of 1:41.677 but he suffered a heavy crash in the first corner shortly before a planned run on Pirelli’s soft rubber.

“We are understanding what we need to be fast”

“The main focus of today was not lap times. We wanted to concentrate on finding a good feeling with the bike, so we tried some different settings to try and make sure we have the best possible base when we head to the first race in Qatar. I feel we made some progress, and we are really starting to understand what we need to be fast and competitive with the new Pirelli tyres. The crash was a shame but thankfully I’m fine and now I’m looking forward to another busy two days working hard with my crew to be in the best shape possible for the first race.”

/// FILIP SALAC: 16^th, 1:41.791, 62 laps

• It was a day of constant improvement for Salac, with geometry modifications and analysis of different front and rear suspension settings meaning it was a hectic but positive start to proceedings for the Czech star.
• An improvement by 0.8s from session one reflected the excellent progress made, with Salac just over three-tenths-of-a-second away from the top six.
• The priority for Salac and his Elf Marc VDS Racing crew for the remaining two days is to carry out endurance testing of the new Pirelli tyres while also attempting to improve his time attack speed on soft compound rubber.

“We’re making sure we’re ready to race in Qatar”

“We did a very good job on day one here in Jerez because we were able to work through a very intense work schedule with a lot of positive conclusions. The lap time was nothing spectacular in the early part of the day, but we were testing today rather than looking for that one fast time. As the day wore on though I was able to go quite a bit faster and I was really enjoying riding the bike. The team is doing an amazing job, and we have a good plan to improve over the final two days and make sure we head to Qatar ready to race.”