Leandro Mercado (MIE Honda) celebrated his comeback under extremely difficult conditions after his second involuntary absence in the Czech round. From round two, he was missing to Assen for 3 rounds because his team had poorly prepared for the second Corona season.

Leandro Mercado after his absence with a positive Covid-19 test in Most: „It was nice to get back in the saddle today. But it was definitely not easy, because the route is very different from the others, very bumpy and with a lot of waves. Coming here without ever seeing or driving the circuit, unlike most other pilots, it means we have doubled the work to do. In any case, I learned the route in the morning and became a little more familiar with the course. Then the conditions for the FP2 changed a lot as it got very hot and had little grip. We worked on the setup, tried different things with the electronics and the chassis, and will try even more on Saturday morning. The main thing is to improve myself, especially with cornering and grip. Hopefully we can take a step forward in tomorrow’s final practice session.“

Andrea Locatelli: „In the end I am very happy because we worked very hard on that first day and achieved a good position – P4 in the second session, when the conditions were hottest, and 5th overall. We tried to find a good rhythm in the heat and the feeling with the bike is not that bad. For tomorrow, we will definitely try to improve a bit and, especially in the fourth sector, to drive a little more speed because I usually lost a bit of time here. Generally I am confident and tomorrow we will improve. But we’ll see, it won’t be easy because it’s so hot. We’ll be ready for the race on Saturday.“

Andrea Locatelli (Pata Yamaha with BRIXX) has finally made it to the top of the world since the Assen lap – before that he had a first highlight with P5, especially in the last Estoril race.

Toprak Razgatlioglu: „Today we are happy because it was a good start on Friday to take second place in the overall ranking of the best times. For me the racing simulation is the most important thing, but we are very strong, and I also have the feeling that my bike was much better in the second session. We feel ready for the race, but we’ll see because I think it won’t be an easy race as it’s very hot in Navarre. We’ll see, maybe it won’t be easy, but I’ll try again to fight for victory.“

Alvaro Bautista (HRC Honda): „We had tested here a few months ago and the conditions have remained similar so far as the track is still bumpy. It’s a challenge with lots of slow corners. For me, the most beautiful section is the first fast corner. In the morning we initially had problems with braking, my bike was quite unstable. So we tried to work on it in the afternoon, but track conditions were hotter, and we had less grip. I’ve tried different compounds, but the grip, especially on the edge of the tire, was very poor. We still have a few ideas for tomorrow anyway, and on Friday we weren’t that far off the top. Now let’s see if we can find something to improve the stability and rear grip of the bike.“

Alvaro Bautista’s team-mate Leon Haslam had a less than good first day than the little Spaniard, which can be seen from the expression on his face in the HRC Honda box.

Leon Haslam (HRC Honda): „In the morning, I had a little crash when I put on a new tire. As a result, the results in the end were not as good as hoped. I’m having some trouble stopping the Honda. The conditions that afternoon were very hot, and we spent most of the time trying to understand how we could improve in terms of corner entry because we had the same problem as in the morning, and I wasn’t going any faster with the new tire could drive. We still have work to do tomorrow, but we knew this track would be tough. We’re competitive on a lot of tracks, but the very tight corners are one of the areas where we need to improve, and this track has a lot of them. It’s a good track to test our weak spots anyway, and we’ll keep trying to push for it.“

Jonathan Rea (KRT): „We had two very different sessions today to validate some of the items we used in the last Montmelo test in Barcelona. I felt fine to be able to cope with the track and the bumps. As the temperature rose in the afternoon, the track changed a little so that the grip level decreased. We went back to some components that we had used before. Basically, the Catalan tests confirmed that we were on the right track.“

Lucas Mahias (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) had to take a break since Assen due to a hand injury – on his comeback he first struggled with technical problems and then the fast Frenchman also had a crash in FP2. With him, however, an increase is definitely still possible for on Saturday.

Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team): „I felt pretty good on the Kawasaki today. Our lap times don’t reflect how I felt on the track. With the bike setup, we want to improve our corner entry, especially in the trail brake area, in order to be ready for the first race on Saturday. This is the area we will be focusing on the most. The track layout is a lot of fun, I absolutely like the course.“

Scott Redding (Aruba.it Racing Ducati): “It was a very positive day and I have to admit that I enjoyed it. I drove a lot of laps and even when the team asked me to go back to the garage at the end of FP2, the feeling was so good that I was left on the track without petrol. That’s fine considering the pace was incisive even in the afternoon with the highest temperatures.”

Michael Ruben Rinaldi – the Aruba.it Ducati team-mate from Redding didn’t have a very good feeling in FP1, but the Italian is obviously great in the heat.

Michael Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing Ducati): „We ran into some difficulties today. In the morning I didn’t have a good feeling, while in the afternoon we were able to improve with the higher asphalt temperature, while the others struggled a little more. For this reason, I am very satisfied, even if we still have to work on taking a small step forward.“

Combined times from Navarre after Friday

Combined WorldSSP 600 times from Navarre after Friday

WorldSBK Navarra schedule

>WSBK Navarra Preview see separate report on this page.

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