Day 1 of testing in Portimao ahead of the Pirelli Portuguese Round is in the books Among the day’s strongest performances, Andrea Locatelli once again proved his caliber, finishing third fastest. Prior to this test, Locatelli performed well in Phillip Island, not as fast as in other years as he is regularly among the fastest Down Under, however fast enough to earn a sixth-place standing in the Riders’ Championship. Similar to the preseason Test Days here at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve in January, rain played a big role in limiting dry testing time for the grid’s riders, and Day 1 was no different.

Overnight rain largely limited running in the day’s morning session, most riders not taking to the track until around 12:30. Locatelli didn’t take to the track until around 13:15, where in his second lap he jumped up to an early P2 with a 1’45.432s lap. From there, he continued to improve as the day went on, improving to P3 with 1’41.202s, just 0.034s behind Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) in P2.

On these results, ‘Loka’ was all smiles, “Honestly I was quite happy with the feeling today, but I was immediately happy with the feeling at Phillip Island as well. Overall, we kept the same feeling and I’m feeling confident with the braking point and I just want to keep riding like this and make another step. Immediately today I found a good feeling on the bike, I’m happy about that and I’m looking forward to continue to improve. At the moment I’m quite happy and I feel like we have a good base setup to come into the race weekend."

‘Loka’ was happy to report there were no major issues with the bike that he and his crew felt like they needed to address in testing. The Italian rider and his team elected to only hit the track in the afternoon, as aside from minor setup adjustments to things like the bike’s electronics, he and his Pata Maxus Yamaha Team feel like their setup is in a good place.

In his words, “Today’s focus was to get the feeling,” said Loka “the conditions werent the best in the morning, but overall, when we went on-track in the afternoon I immediately found a feeling on the bike and this was one of the most important things. Later on, we tried to adjust and work on the electronics setup, also, we have not necessarily something new, but something to consider, we confirmed what we tried and that is what is important. We’ll try to take another step tomorrow!”

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