Despite some incidents the riders of PrüstelGP team fight their way to grid positions 6 and 20 – the team is ready for the British Grand Prix.
The PrüstelGP riders started the second day of the Grand Prix at the Silverstone Circuit today in dry but cloudy weather conditions and around 15°C. On both sides of the box the goal was to go directly into Q2 with a fast lap in the third free practice in order to create as good a starting position as possible for Sunday.
On Thursday, Ryusei Yamanaka was still hoping to be eligible for BritishGP at all after injuring his shoulder in a crash in the practice session two weeks ago. However, the intensive preparation paid off for the Japanese rider: he was declared “fit” by the doctors and was allowed to sit on his KTM again for the first free practice session yesterday, Friday. While Yamanaka was still a bit hesitant in the morning, he found a way to ride with less pain in the afternoon by slightly changing his riding style – and so he was ready for today, Saturday, to give everything in the third free practice as well as in qualifying. However, a 100% performance is still not possible for Yamanaka: with his shoulder still a bit affected, he ranks 20th for tomorrow’s race start.
On the side of Filip Salac not everything went according to plan. The Czech started the first day strongly and classified himself in a good sixth place in yesterday’s first free practice session. On Friday afternoon, as well as this morning in the third free practice, he suffered two crashes. Salac did not make it directly into Q2 and had to go through Q1, which at least gave him back some of the practice time lost due to the crashes. Salac will start tomorrow’s race at the Silverstone Circuit from a good 6th place after the ups and downs.
Filip Salac (6th | +0.478s)
“Today was really difficult. In FP3 I crashed twice. In the first, it was not my fault, another rider crashed into me. The second time, I simply lost the front. The bike was badly damaged, but the team did a great job and fixed it. In the afternoon I luckily made it to Q2, where I was able to go straight to P6 with the first lap time. All there is to say today is a huge thank you to the team. I’m looking forward to tomorrow!”
Ryusei Yamanaka (20th | +1.3s)
“The third free practice wasn’t easy for me, my shoulder was causing me quite a bit of pain. In the meantime, however, I feel a bit better. We’ve also adjusted the strategy – but I’m still having problems being really fast in the first two sectors. Either way, the race is tomorrow – I’m now trying to save my energy for tomorrow and somehow also enjoy the weekend a bit more. The main thing is that I can sit on the bike, despite my injured shoulder.”
Pictures by © [2021] RLekl
