The final round of the 2018 MotoGP World Championship season greeted the riders today with persistent rain at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia. Thereby, Johann Zarco initiated his last round with Monster Yamaha Tech3 in a decent way, but struggled to find his pace in FP2 this afternoon when the track was even more drenched. Anyway, the fast Frenchman is confident to improve further tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, Hafizh Syahrin had the chance to use the day in order to get more comfortable in full wet conditions. Through the conditions have been more tricky during the second session, the Malaysian MotoGP rookie could lower his lap time from this morning and gained a lot of experience aboard his Yamaha YZR-M1. Now he is eager to make another step forward in tomorrow’s FP3 at 9.55 local time.


Johann Zarco - Position: 13th – Time: 1’41.146 – Laps: 30

“The first practice today was quite ok. We did some good work and my feeling on the bike was pretty good. I’ve been out of the top 10 because I couldn’t improve on the last lap, because I had to overtake some other riders. This is a pity, as in the afternoon it was much more rain and much more water on the track. In the first exit, I had a crash and then I saw that nobody was going faster, apart from Petrucci. So, it was better to not take any risk and safe some tyres for Saturday. If we have a bit less water tomorrow morning, I’m quite convinced that we will be able to lower our lap time immediately in order to reach the top 10 in FP3.”

Hafizh Syahrin - Position: 24th – Time: 1’43.727 – Laps: 41

“I felt good in the second practice. In FP1 I was riding in the full wet conditions with my Yamaha just for the second time after the 15 minutes of Sepang Qualifying, so I got used to this feeling with the Michelin tyres. This afternoon was quite decent and I think we improved a lot with the setup of the bike and also myself. The conditions were a bit different than this morning and I think if it would have been similar, we had a fair chance to go a lot faster. Anyway, I have some good sensations now. I’m sure we can make another step forward on Saturday. I try to keep working hard together with my guys as it’s not an easy task to ride in the wet as a rookie, but I try to learn as much as possible, to gather experience, to work on the data and to improve in every corner. We’ll see what tomorrow will bring.”