Remy Gardner and Alessandro Delbianco completed their Friday at the Circuit de Nevers, Magny-Cours, 12th and 21st on combined times with Delbianco making his debut on the Yamaha R1 in the World Championship.

Gardner faced a challenging Free Practice 1, producing laps with the same set of tyres throughout the 45-minute session, prioritising race distance. The Aussie rider finished the session 15th with a time of 1’38.258. On the other side of the garage, Delbianco got to experience the R1 WorldSBK for the first time, gaining confidence each lap to cross the line 22nd (1’40.067).

In the afternoon’s session, the story was the same for Gardner and his crew. The 26-year old focused on long runs assessing the different option race tyres, still making a consistent improvement to his lap time to finish 12th (1’36.994). Delbianco’s feeling got better and better throughout the session, managing to improve his FP1 lap time by a remarkable 2.056s to cross the line 21st.

Remy Gardner: P12 (1’36.994)
“Not the easiest day, but we knew it could have been a challenging one as we faced a tricky weekend last year here. I’m happy overall with the progress we made, although the final position is not fantastic and surely not where we want to be. Weather could also play a key role tomorrow as we might have a wet race, let’s see. Anyway, I’m confident we could make another step forward on the dry, so let’s stay positive for Saturday.”

Alessandro Delbianco: P21 (1’38.011)
“What a day! It was as good as I was expecting. The team did a fantastic job and all the guys worked really hard to make me feel comfortable on the bike in the best way possible. We made a great step from the morning and I’m confident we’ll be able to improve further more, hoping to have another sunny day tomorrow. I cannot wait to be back on track and to race!”