In FP1, Fabio Quartararo quickly adapted to the demanding Circuit of The Americas - the scene of his first GP podium, in Moto3. The Frenchman finished seventh in FP1, stopping the clock with a 2:06.332. Teammate Franco Morbidelli was eleventh in the first session of the weekend, with a best time of 2:06.729.
"Today was a tough day because we had some small problems that I think slowed down our progress. Even so, we were able to be get into the Top 10 with only one quick lap at the end, which is a good result. I need to put in more kilometres here with this bike, because I feel like I haven't done enough laps in a row to understand the track fully. We have to keep working because we still have room for improvement. The difficulty we encountered today were the bumps, of which there are a lot. Towards the end of the day we found a good line and we are going to continue working on that tomorrow. We'll see what happens and if today's time is enough to qualify for Q2."
"We are not officially into Q2 yet, but today the most important thing was to finish in the Top 10 because we know that tomorrow it is likely to rain. I made some mistakes on my two fastest laps, so I'm pretty happy because we only had one tyre to set our flying lap. It's very good to finish in the Top 10 on the first day here in Austin. This circuit is very physical, but I felt ok on the bike. I think it's one of the most demanding circuits of the year and we know it's a good test of our fitness, although I think we're in pretty good shape. We will see in the race, but it is a hard circuit."