The first day of the final Grand Prix of 2022 ended with Elf Marc VDS Racing Team duo Tony Arbolino and Senna Agius gaining important set-up information and data ahead of Sunday’s 25-lap race in Valencia.

• Gloriously sunny but breezy conditions allowed the Elf Marc VDS Racing Team to complete an intense day of work ahead of the season finale at the tight and twisty 4km Ricardo Tormo Circuit.
• Arbolino and Agius are back in action tomorrow morning at 1055am local time for the FP3 session that will decide the top 14 riders who go directly into Q2.

/// TONY ARBOLINO 7^th, 1:35.681, 34 laps

• In-form Italian Arbolino continued his fantastic recent run of strong performances this morning when he finished less than 0.2s away from the top three at the conclusion to the opening 40-minute practice session.
• Arbolino was firmly in the hunt for the top positions again this afternoon and an improvement of 0.4s on his final flying lap of FP2 left him in a competitive seventh place on the combined standings.

“I still think we can fight for the podium”

“It’s fair to say that today we weren’t as strong as we have been in recent races, but the good point is we are not too far away from where we need to be even without a good feeling. That means if we can find a good feeling in FP3 tomorrow morning we can be fast for the rest of the weekend. We can certainly improve on corner entry, but we just need to keep working and believing that we can finish the season in a good way. The target for Sunday hasn’t changed at all. I still think we can fight for the podium and the win, but we just need to solve some small problems to achieve our goal.”

/// SENNA AGIUS, 16^th, 1:36.044, 38 laps

• Replacing injured Briton Sam Lowes for the fourth time this season, Agius was one of the star performers in this morning’s FP1 when he fought the top 10 throughout and eventually finished in a superb 14^th position after completing 20 very productive laps.
• Agius impressed again in FP2 to improve by the big margin of nearly half-a-second to finish 16^th overall and the Australian is confident planned overnight front-end changes will give him a great opportunity to book a direct place in Q2 tomorrow.

“I think we can have a very positive day tomorrow”

“Last week, I was racing here in Valencia in the European Moto2 series and today was all about getting back up to speed with the World Championship-spec machine. It wasn’t a bad day at all, and I feel like I was able to get the good feeling back with the bike from when I last rode it in Aragon. I got to a decent pace quickly but finding that next step is never easy and now we need to analyse the data overnight to understand where we can improve tomorrow. The biggest step can come from finding a better front feeling, and if we can find that good balance, I think we can have a very positive day tomorrow.”