Monster Yamaha Tech3 rider Johann Zarco concluded the opening day at the Circuit of the Americas in 13th position, following a significant improvement of 1.191 seconds from FP1 to the FP2 in the course of a quite tricky day. Yet, the French star is eager to increase his pace during the third Free Practice, which commences at 9.55 local time tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Hafizh Syahrin initially had to learn one of the most demanding tracks of the MotoGP calendar aboard the Yamaha YZR-M1. The premier class rookie mastered his task to perfection, lowering his lap time by impressive 2.6 seconds from the first session to the second, which made him earn the top rookie honors again by the end of day one.


Johann Zarco - Position: 13th - Time: 2’05.933 - Laps: 29

“This was a difficult first day in Texas. This morning I was unlucky with some mechanical issues, so I couldn’t work like I wanted. In the end, the laps I did were quite good. In the afternoon, we were honestly struggling a lot. During the practice, I had some good feelings and I thought we could improve with the soft tyre, but finally it has been even worse with the soft one. It’s kind of strange and it’s a pity, because we are not inside the top 10. I hope that it will be dry, so I can push during FP3 and over all be able to have a good bike and find my pace.”
 
Hafizh Syahrin - Position: 16th - Time: 2’06.219 - Laps: 30

“I felt really good in FP2, we improved a lot. Eventually I had some great sensations. By the end of the session, I was very close to Lüthi, but Nakagami crashed in front of him, so we both had to slow down, which was unfortunate, because I had a lot of confidence with the bike and I think I could have been even faster. In the end, it was a mistake in planning my strategy, but I think that I can do better tomorrow. I hope the weather stays like this and we can get closer to the front in the course of the weekend.”