Bradl aims for better corner entry speed

Friday, 19 July 2013

Stefan Bradl finished second in Friday’s opening day of practice for the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix. Despite his top two placing, the German still has several tasks to complete.

The LCR Honda MotoGP rider’s best effort of 1’22.269 left him two tenths of a second down on pace-setter Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team), although Bradl found himself making up lost ground from earlier on in the day at Laguna Seca.

“Already this morning, with tricky track conditions, we showed our pace but honestly the working plan was not perfect,” the German admitted. “We made some small mistakes but in the afternoon we went back to our standard rhythm.

“Actually I was the first guy out on hard tyre but it did not work properly so we lost some track time on that rubber. After that I checked both bikes once again as we compared two different swing arm lengths and I already chose the one for the race.

“Finally I went out on soft tyre and could do a very good lap time, but the session was suddenly red-flagged (for an accident involving wildcard rider Blake Young, Attack Performance Racing). Basically we took the right direction but we still need to improve the front-end in the breaking areas.”

In his home race at the Sachsenring last weekend, Bradl finished fourth which equalled his career-best result so far. With both Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) and Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team) carrying injuries this weekend, Bradl could be presented with his best chance yet of a career-first MotoGP™ podium.

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