Avintia Racing Ducati’s Mike Jones says that he was surprised at how much easier it was to ride a MotoGP bike in the wet than he anticipated, the Australian making his wet weather debut this morning in FP1.
Jones is extremely experienced at the Phillip Island Circuit, and is all too familiar with the Island’s highly unpredictable weather. But, this morning’s only practice session saw the Aussie rider trying MotoGP machinery in the wet for the first time, a rather daunting prospect on the grid’s most powerful bike.
Despite only ever riding a MotoGP bike in the dry, and never having ridden on Michelin’s wet tyres, the Aussie was nonetheless impressive. Jones used all of his extensive circuit knowledge to excellent effect and took the chequered flag in 13th with a 1m43.483s, just four tenths off of Aprilia’s Stefan Bradl in 10th. Jones ended the cancelled FP2 second fastest, though almost 10 seconds off of his FP1 pace.
The torrential weather that forced the afternoon running to be called off was of particularly bad news to Jones, who needs as much time on track as possible to continue his education of the Desmosedici GP14.2. However, he was still delighted to ride in front of his home fans today, even if it wasn’t for as long as he would have liked.
“It was incredible to go out on a MotoGP bike in front of the Australian fans at Phillip Island and even more so since I know this circuit very well and I already had some experience with the bike when this opportunity came,” said Jones.
“The morning session was good for me because I got to know how the bike feels in wet conditions. It was a real surprise because it was much easier to ride in the rain than I expected. After only a few laps I had a good feeling for what the tyres were doing and I felt comfortable immediately. I’m a bit disappointed that the conditions were much worse in the afternoon and we weren’t able to improve. It’s important for me to do many laps in order to understand the bike better, but we can’t control the weather. It is what it is and I can only hope that it will improve for the rest of the weekend so that we can improve as well.”
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