Morbidelli hit his first target of the weekend with top ten times in both practice sessions with Thomas Luthi 23rd overall at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli.

Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 riders Franco Morbidelli and Thomas Luthi began their work for Sunday’s race in dry but humid conditions with the rain holding off for the afternoon FP2 session.

Franco Morbidelli was immediately on the pace at his home track with 10th position in FP1 having benefitted from the earlier MotoGP test day here. In FP2 the Italian rider confirmed his speed going 0.4s faster to be ninth in that session. Overall for the opening day of practice Morbidelli finished tenth at 1’32.980

Thomas Luthi completed FP1 in 22nd place but found the track conditions much different from the very hot weather of the test day at Misano. In FP2 Luthi focussed on race set-up and did not do a final time attack on a new soft rear tyre but still went 0.6s faster to finish 23rd overall with a best time of 1.34.278.

Tomorrow’s FP3 session will be at 9:55am and then FP4 at 1:30pm followed by qualifying at 2:10pm.

Franco Morbidelli: 10th, 1’32,980 +0.782, 37 laps, 156 km
“It was good day and we did a lot of valuable work for the race and it was an advantage to start the day having already done some kilometres on a MotoGP bike at this track. We are in good shape so far and a couple of the set-up options we tried at Silverstone are also working here.”

Thomas Luthi: 23rd, 1’34.278, +2.080, 42 laps, 177 km
“The track today was in a different condition compared to the test day here when we did some positive work. But in FP1 this morning I was slower than in the test and struggling for grip. Then in the afternoon I tried the soft tyre but could not get it to work so we had to change our plan to understand the race set-up. At the moment I didn’t have the speed that I expected here.”