Moto2: Quick shifter issue holds back Rea
Gino Rea was pleased with seventh place in this afternoon's wet Moto2 practice session at Misano, the Englishman encouraged by being able to set his time in spite of a gear shift problem that robbed him of speed.
The difficult conditions in the early stages of FP2 made for treacherous conditions with numerous riders falling and Rea was lucky not to join them having spun up the rear tyre and ran onto the exit kerbs.
While he avoided a crash the incident damaged his quick shifter and cost him track time in the session.
"It wasn't bad today," said Rea. "In the first session setup we struggled with setup and didn't get the most out of the bike but in the second session we made some changes and it was going well in the beginning but on the third lap I spun coming out of turn ten and went up on the kerbs and when I got on the kerb it hit the rev limiter and straight away the gear shifter stopped working so I pulled into the pits and we lost most of the session.
"When we got back out again the quick shifter still wasn't working and I was having to release the throttle when I was changing gear so I was losing a lot of time down the straights but chassis wise it was quite good and I could make up a lot of time in the corners.
"Considering that problem I'm quite happy with where we ended up because it's hard work around here without the quickshifter because you change gear so often on the side of the tyre. I had to be really careful changing gear but considering that it was good."
With the conditions catching out so many riders in all three crashes, there was over 50 crashes, Rea commented on the challenge facing the riders at Misano:
"A lot of people crashed on the brakes, even in a straight line, so it showed just how greasy it gets. It's so hard to judge that grip on the fronts because if you braked too hard you went down and there was no way of saving it. You have to have a good feeling with the bike and what it's doing underneath you. I felt like I had a good feeling so I knew how much I could push."
With the weather expected to improve for the rest of the weekend Rea will take confidence from today's running but knows that maintaining a top ten position in tomorrow's qualifying will be difficult but the strong start means that his target of returning to the points is still the goal for this weekend:
"It's nice to start the weekend in the top ten, it's the first time this year, so that's good for my confidence and especially when we had the quick shifter problem so I'm just hoping that we can transfer it into the dry and I'm not expecting top ten but hopefully top 15."
