Tony Arbolino was content to start the second Moto2 round of 2024 on the front foot, as he ended Practice 1 with clear ideas on where to improve set-up.

• Overnight rain complicated the start to the first European round of the 2024 Moto2 World Championship, as a significant amount of dirt was deposited on the Algarve International Circuit on Friday morning, meaning times were slower than usual. By the afternoon, times were just over 0.3s off the lap record in Practice 1.
• Tony Arbolino is Elf Marc VDS Racing Team’s sole entrant for the Portuguese GP as Filip Salac recovers from surgery that was conducted to alleviate arm pump.

/// TONY ARBOLINO, 8^th – 1’42.904

• Tony started Free Practice – the first session of the weekend – by conducting a longer run with Pirelli’s hard rear tyre option. He progressively got faster through the session, as he finished with the 6^th fastest time.
• The 23-year old then used the afternoon session to assess different front tyre options and ran competitive times over two different runs. His fastest was just 0.542s off pace setter Alonso Lopez.

“We’re on the right line in terms of the feeling”

“The feeling today was not that bad. It looks like we’re on the right line in terms of the feeling but we need to polish that a bit. Then we’ll be there. I was quite fast using different tyre combinations. I feel confident because the guys will check the data and work to improve the feeling for tomorrow. Both tyre compounds that Pirelli have brought here are ok. Both could be used for the front and rear so we’ll keep working to understand which is the best combination that we’ll race on Sunday, and we’ll go from there. I’m confident of a strong qualifying performance tomorrow so let’s go and do it!”