Montmeló, Spain – 12 June 2015: Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Tito Rabat made a confident start to his bid for a second successive victory on his home track near Barcelona today.

Rabat was one of seven riders inside the top 10 that set his personal best lap of the day in cooler conditions this morning.

Track temperatures rocketed by nearly 20 degrees for FP2, but reduced grip levels and a small front chatter issue didn’t prevent Rabat from setting the fifth fastest time of the day at 4.727km track.

Alex Marquez excelled in the hotter conditions this afternoon and the 19-year-old was able to lap 0.5s faster than his pace in FP1. He finished in 18th position and a clear indication of the rapid progress he is making on the Kalex package was the fact that he was less than 0.8s off the best pace and only 0.6s behind Rabat.

Tito Rabat 5th – 1’47.196
“Today was a little bit more difficult than we anticipated. We had some chatter issues but we definitely know that we can improve tomorrow. My rhythm and consistency is actually pretty good but we just need to improve the feeling of the bike to help me be a little bit faster. The lap times are really close but I am confident we can aim for the front row in qualifying tomorrow.”

Alex Marquez 18th – 1.47.750
“Today was positive and we made a lot of progress with front feeling. We can still improve but for my first time on this track in Moto2 I am happy. We need to concentrate on making one fast lap in qualifying because my rhythm for the race is good. I feel really confident on the bike and I am enjoying riding in front of my home crowd. They are pushing me and it is really special to be here. Tomorrow will mean more fans, so that means more gas from me!

Michael Bartholemy: Team Principal
“Today was a good start to the home race for Tito and Alex. Both of them have a good race pace but they are losing too much in the fourth sector. Tito was losing much more than we expected and he preferred not to pit in FP2, which would have given us some chance to find a solution. But he is fast and I am confident. Alex had a positive day but he was losing a lot of time in the last section too. We will work on that tonight to make them both faster in that sector.”