Althea BMW managed to advance both riders into Superpole 2 on a sweltering Friday at the Chang International Circuit in Thailand. Jordi Torres and Markus Reiterberger were seventh and ninth respectively with less than a second covering the top ten in free practice.
Torres was pleased to avoid the potential problems that SP1 can provide but admits he still has work to do before he is happy with his race set-up.
“We’ve completed this first tough day! It’s extremely hot and it’s not easy to be on the bike when it’s like this but having said that we’ve worked well. This morning we understood which tyre to use and didn’t have any particular problems. In the afternoon, we made some small changes to the electronics and it went a little better but the frustrating thing is that we have some vibration. For tomorrow I want to be more relaxed and ride more smoothly, because at this track I only complicate things if I ride aggressively.”
Reiterberger has also identified the areas he needs to improve but already believes he is starting from a better base than he did in Australia.
“A positive day here. We made a good start in FP1 and I immediately felt better here than I did at Phillip Island. In the second session, we made a change to the rear shock and this improved my feeling with the rear, especially in braking, so I thank my team for that. We still need to make some improvements at the front but our pace is not bad right now. I hope to improve further tomorrow, if we can find another couple of tenths then I’m sure we can run two strong races on Saturday and Sunday…”
