Kent: We made a big step on our last run

Danny Kent made a big step forward on his final run of the day at Misano to vault to the top of the timesheets. The Englishman has been in superb form all year but with the racing taking place in the heart of Italian racing it was important to lay down a marker to his title rival, Enea Bastianini, as well as the horde of strong Italians in the Moto3 class.

“Bastianini and the Italians are racing in their back garden and on Sunday they wake up they wake up with some extra power,” said Kent when asked about racing against the Italians. “Sunday will be a difficult race because the Italians will all look to go out and do well in front of their home crowd. I’m confident for this weekend though, we struggled this morning but made a big step forward on our last run in FP2.”

Kent said that the new track surface was a big improvement on last year’s bumpy track but overall felt that it didn’t offer him the same performance improvement that had been expected given the positive feedback from other riders.

“I wouldn’t say that the track is massively different to last year. Having heard so many people say that it’s two seconds a lap quicker than last year…I’d love to know where I can find two seconds! To be fair though it’s not as bumpy and in a few corners last year there were a few corners that were bumpy on entry and exit but this year it seems to be not too bad.

“This morning it was very dirty off line but I think that as that improves towards the end of the weekend we’ll get some fast laptimes. The track is a lot smoother than last year. There was a big bump on the way into the last corner that unsettled the bike but it’s much better this year. All of the problems that we suffered last year seem to be solved so they’ve done a good job with the resurfacing.”