Jonas Folger enjoyed a successful opening day of practice at the Circuito do Estoril, finishing in the top ten in both sessions.
After a strong second race at MotorLand Aragón less than a week ago, Jonas Folger and his German team Bonovo Action / MGM Performance Racing picked up exactly where they left off last Sunday. In sunny conditions on Friday at Estoril, the WorldSBK rookie managed a best effort in 1’37.941 during this morning’s first free practice session, which catapulted him directly to seventh place on the timesheet.
In the second free practice session in the warmer conditions in the afternoon, the 27-year-old German did not manage to improve his times compared to FP1, but he was able to continue working on the set-up of his BMW M 1000 RR together with his crew and eventually finished in ninth place. Just one second behind Friday’s fastest rider, Folger closed the first day of practice in Portugal in a strong ninth place overall.
#94 Jonas FOLGER (Bonovo Action MGM Racing, BMW M 1000 RR), FP1: P7 - 1´37.941 / FP2: P9 - 1´38.140:
“I am happy with this first day here in Estoril and I think that goes for all of us. We had two decent sessions with P7 in FP1 and P9 in FP2. So, we finished in the top ten both times and that is exactly where we want to be. Therefore, everything is good so far. Of course, we have made a much different start than in Aragón and therefore we now have completely different tasks to solve. But this is also positive, because we are now already fine-tuning the bike’s setup and no longer have to worry about a base, because the bike simply fits. We did well in both practices and are now very relieved that the difficulties we had last week are much less of a concern here. That is very pleasing overall. I am now looking forward to tomorrow after we’ve done a really good job so far.”
#EstorilWorldSBK - Combined Free Practice Times (FP1/FP2):
1 Toprak RAZGATGLIOGLU / TUR / PATA Yamaha with BRIXX WorldSBK / Yamaha YZF R1 / 1´36.920 (FP1)
2 Scott REDDING / GBR / Aruba.it Racing - Ducati / Ducati Panigale V4 R / 1´37.334 +0.414 (FP2)
3 Jonathan REA / GBR / Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK / Kawasaki ZX-10RR / 1´37.501 +0.581 (FP1)
9 #94 Jonas FOLGER / GER / Bonovo Action MGM Racing Performance / BMW M 1000 RR / 1´37.941 +1.021 (FP1)
#EstorilWorldSBK - Time Schedule for Saturday May 29th (CET):
10:00 - 10:30 FP3
12:10 - 12:25 Superpole
15:00 Race 1 (21 Laps - 87.822 km)
