It wasn’t just the experienced front men who grabbed the headlines today, however, with Páginas Amarillas Aspar rider Héctor Barberá one of a group of impressive rookies that should provide an entertaining sub-plot to the race. Barberá shave 1.5 seconds off his pace from yesterday’s opening session in the morning’s free practice and then found another half second in the afternoon. The Spaniard lines up at the head of the fourth row in tenth position and is hoping to sign off with a solid result before taking a well-earned summer break.

10th Héctor Barberá 1.22.366 (30 laps):
“I am really happy although I would have obviously preferred to be on the third row. I am only a tenth of a second off eighth place but tenth is still good for me. The team has worked really well and I really enjoyed myself on the bike. Hopefully tomorrow I can have a good start and an even better race, to improve on my best result so far. On one hand I’m happy because everything comes much easier when you’re enjoying yourself on the bike but at the same time we are showing that we are competitive and there is no reason for us to back off – you always have to strive to improve. I’ll be going out to give my best tomorrow and a lot will depend on my start and the first few laps because our race pace is there. The best thing about today was that we kept improving little set-up details on the Ducati and made progress throughout. I think we have gathered a lot of experience over the eight races so far and we’ve learned from our mistakes, so if we can put it all into practice tomorrow I think I can be fighting for a top eight finish, which would be a good result for us.”

The technical layout and elevation changes of Laguna Seca make it a big challenge for the riders and today the field were separated by a large margin. Páginas Amarillas Aspar rider Héctor Barberá started out well on his first visit to the Californian track, making progress throughout the session and clocking his best time on his last of 32 laps – an effort that was good enough for 13th position overall.

13th Héctor Barberá 1.24.326 (32 laps):
“The Corkscrew is very cool – you don’t see anything on the entry and you just have to throw yourself in there. After a couple of laps I already felt dizzy from all the elevation changes! Even though the Corkscrew section is the most fun it is also the place I’m struggling the most so we have to work out a faster way through there. The circuit in general is very interesting but I haven’t got used to it yet and this first session was just a case of getting a feel for it. I’m happy because I went out and did 22 laps and improved on every one of them. I stopped to put a harder tyre on but I didn’t have any grip with it and the last five laps of the session weren’t much use. Anyway, looking on the bright side I have got to know the circuit and got my braking markers sorted out. I tried to get some references from other riders too and now I just have to put them into practice. My Ducati was working really well – today was more a case of finding my way around the track before we start on set-up.”

(*These results only cover entrants for the restarted race)

10th Héctor Barberá:
“This race was rather better for me than the last two, and today we began to find the right path to follow. However, I am not completely happy, because we still have room for improvement and have to work hard to place higher up with every race. I was about half a second down on pace today. My start wasn’t great, and I tried to follow Hayden during the race. Tenth isn’t a bad result, but it leaves a bittersweet taste in my mouth because I could have done even better. Our main gripe is having to fight to control the front end; from lap fifteen onwards the steering was locking up on nearly every corner. We have got better, because I was a lot more comfortable in the race than in practice, but we need to work more on this. The majority of riders were on hard tyres, but I chose a soft front -simply because I didn’t feel at all comfortable with the hard version. The end of the race had two fast turns in which I was sliding everywhere, losing me nearly half a second. We have taken another step forward with respect to other races, but we still have to improve.”