Tech3 MotoGP rookie Hafizh Syharin says he tried to 'copy' former Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo's riding style at Brno, after ending Friday fourth fastest.
Lorenzo won twice at Brno during his Yamaha MotoGP days, taking victory in dominant fashion by five seconds in 2010 and 2015.
Syahrin, who ended Friday as the fastest Yamaha runner in fourth with a lap of 1:56.200, says he tried to copy Lorenzo's smooth riding style and “can't believe” the end result.
“I tried to ride smooth,” said Syahrin. “We know that Lorenzo was very fast with Yamaha here and I tried to copy his style to ride at Brno.
“I cannot believe what I did in the two sessions on the first day. In the second session I was trying to improve my time from this morning and I believed that I could improve from this morning when I went out, and the team tried to give me the best set-up.
“In the end, I had a good feeling on the bike. I tried a hard tyre on the front, and also the rear.
“At the beginning I wasn't so confident with the hard tyre, because I had the big crash in Austin with that tyre.
“But, with the hot conditions like this, I made a good step.”
Vinales: Yamaha can do great at Brno
Factory Yamaha rider Maverick Vinales was the next-best M1-mounted runner in sixth, almost two tenths back of Syahrin.
Vinales admits the bike is not working “perfectly”, but feels his performance was promising and has urged Yamaha to “hurry up” in finding a better set-up for the hot conditions in order to build on his Friday speed.
“It's been good, because I think the bike was not working perfectly yet, but we're still quite close to the top, especially with our rhythm,” he said.
“We have to keep working, there's room to improve and we need to keep pushing. The feeling with the tyres is good, I felt good the whole time with all types of tyres, we just need to make it work.
“Honestly, today has been difficult, it was really hot. It seems it will be like this the whole weekend, so we have to hurry up on the set-up because at the moment it's not ready yet.
“I will try to keep up the pace I had at the previous GPs. Brno maybe isn't the best track for me, but the bike is working well. We know we can do great.”
Discussion about this post