Darryn looking for strong Sunday performance to close first half of his rookie season
Following a Friday of mixed conditions, the sun was back above the legendary TT Circuit in Assen for Saturday’s action at the Dutch Grand Prix. Although temperatures were dropping again just shortly before Qualifying in the afternoon, the track stayed dry and offered perfect conditions today.
Darryn still needs to adapt to one of his favorite circuits aboard his Yamaha YZR-M1 machine. The MotoGP rookie basically lost FP1, which was taking place in full wet conditions and could just start to work on his sensations in the dry at the end of FP2 yesterday. Yet he improved his lap time by 0.614 seconds this morning compared to Friday and in Qualifying, broke even the 1:34 mark, going nearly another second faster than in FP3.
He’ll still have to catch up from the end of the field tomorrow when the red lights go out at 14:00 local time, but was already getting closer and closer to the front runners.
DARRYN BINDER
“Today we’ve been lucky enough to have a completely dry day. This morning started off quite alright. At the beginning of FP3 I was just getting more laps on the dry, starting to understand the track better, because yesterday we didn’t get so many laps in these conditions. I just felt like it’s taking a bit too long to figure things out, I would have needed the extra two sessions in dry conditions yesterday. I feel like I’m behind this weekend. Slowly, but surely, I’m starting to understand what I need to work on for tomorrow, but I’m a bit disappointed with my speed today. I hope I can come back on Sunday and be a lot faster.”