Jorge Martin’s Friday at Hungary’s new Balaton Park Circuit began with parking the RS-GP on gravel after a speculator’s engine failure.
However, Martin finished as a top Aprilia rider on the day, finishing in the top 10th place in two direct qualifying positions, just 0.001 seconds from Fabio Cartalaro.
“No (remorse),” Martin told Motogp.com when asked about getting closer to Qualifying 2.
“I certainly want to be in the second quarter, but today I did my best and we are taking a bigger step.
“Today was great. We didn’t touch on the bike setup. We focused more on the gearbox on this new truck, but we’re in the right direction.
“I’ve improved my sense of frontline a little bit so I can turn it a little bit more, so I can go to a better line and open the throttle a little faster.
“We have to keep going like this. From a pace perspective, I feel much stronger than Austria. You can ride it yourself. This is important.”
Martin added: “I don’t think we’re far away in terms of pace, but on a flying lap, I’m not sure I have to push to the limit.
“I’m happy with the outcome… I can fight right away.”
On my teammate Marco Betzecki’s day, I skated in the opposite direction, starting with 6th in FP1 for the 12th in afternoon practice.
“It’s been a difficult day for us,” admitted Betzekki, who came on fourth in the World Championships following the podium in three of the last four GPSs.
“The track is very beautiful and may be a bit small for MotoGP, but I enjoyed riding and especially Sector 2.
“Overall, I struggled with the brakes a bit, and I struggled to stop the bike properly, and then there are a lot of corners here and there, if you don’t stop well, it’s hard to make the perfect lap.
“I was expecting a little more from the time attack, but I didn’t feel the help of the soft rear of the braking so I’ll work on this tonight.”
Martin and Betzecchi will face things like Francesco Bagnaia and Fabio di Giannantonio in Qualifying 1 on Saturday.