Ben Spies and Jorge Lorenzo both felt optimistic ahead of the Dutch TT after topping the two Thursday Practice sessions. Lorenzo led in the morning before Spies took over in FP2 and having shown strong pace in both qualifying and race trim, the American is pleased with his start to the weekend.
“Today was a good day, both this morning and this afternoon. In the second session we did almost race distance on the tyres in case it rains tomorrow to be ready for Saturday. We had quick times and then tried the soft tyre at the end of the session and were able to put down some quick laps with over race distance on the front tyre. The bike feels good so we're going to continue on this path and try to make the bike even better for tomorrow and Saturday.”
Lorenzo fifth fastest but only trailed his teammate by 0.189s and the championship leader expects the normal order to be restored in qualifying after some riders tried the soft tyres today.
“The feeling is pretty good with the bike, we started in a good way this morning and were fastest. In the afternoon we were fastest for most of the session but finally the riders who switched to soft tyres went in front of me. We concentrated on improving the pace with a race tyre and I think we succeeded. We have a good package and I'm confident with the bike which is important.”
Like his riders, Team Manager Wilco Zeelenberg is feeling confident ahead of qualifying where Lorenzo will go in search of a fourth consecutive victory.
“A very good first day at Assen and great weather too! The bike is behaving really well, this morning we were quickest and Jorge was even a little faster in the afternoon session. We were very consistent so a happy team and a happy rider.”
