Remy Gardner and Marvin Fritz completed Friday at the new Cremona Circuit, Italy, 16th and 24th on combined times with Fritz making his first appearance with the GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team.

A wet start to Free Practice 1 saw Gardner sit out the whole session, with the track starting to dry just in the latter stages. Eager to get out for the first time, Fritz completed productive laps on damp asphalt in his first outing with the GYTR GRT Yamaha to gain confidence, crossing the line ninth (1’42.537).

In the afternoon’s session, Gardner and Fritz focused on long runs and understanding the new aerodynamic package assessing the different options for the race. The #87 encountered a challenging Free Practice 2, still managing to learn a lot and gather valuable data for the weekend. He was 16th (‘1’30.622) at the end of the session. On the other side of the garage, Fritz’s first outing on full dry tyres saw him end the session in 24th (1’31.954).

Following an incident with Danilo Petrucci on track in FP2, Gardner was handed a three-place grid penalty for Saturday’s opening race. The team have lodged an appeal against this decision with the FIM.

Remy Gardner: P16 (1’30.622)
“It wasn’t the easiest day overall and unfortunately we missed some valuable track time in the Free Practice 1. We also got to use the new aerodynamic package and it’s good to have new things to try. It was unfortunate to miss FP1 because of the conditions, we missed some time to understand the package and our setting so hopefully we can achieve this tomorrow and make a step forward. I am disappointed to see I have a penalty for the Petrucci thing; I was taking a tear-off off and because of this deliberately kept off-line, I looked behind me and saw he was coming and kept further off the line, so I was quite surprised when I came round the next lap and found him swearing at me, I had to take evasive action and ended up in the gravel.”

Marvin Fritz: P24 (1’31.954)
“This Friday was surely a challenging one, but each lap my feeling was getting better and better. This morning we got to run on wet track but it was still okay to get confidence with the bike and the tyres. Afterwards, in the afternoon’s session, I was able to improve my lap time on used tyres, which leaves me confident for tomorrow, it means there’s margin to be faster.”