Press release:After the injury suffered in Assen less then three weeks ago, Mika Kallio is back on track even if his physical conditions are not the best and he made it to register interesting lap times during the first free practice session. The Finnish rider is still suffering pain at his left ring finger, but with courage has fought in a day made even harder due to the heavy rain that came down on the German circuit just before the beginning of this afternoon free practice started at 2pm local time. Mika had to get his confidence back and in the first few laps had to check the situation with the injured finger. At the end of the practice he started to push and registered the thirteenth fastest lap time of the day not too far from the bests riders. His teammate, Niccolò Canepa, made his debut at Sachsenring and he is in fifteenth position with a respectable lap time after only 31 laps.
Fabiano Sterlacchini - Pramac Racing Technical Director:
"Reading what has happened today, with the particular weather conditions and Mika's precarious physical condition, the situation isn't bad at all. Mika has constantly improved and we made it do modify the bike even if the track conditions were changing really fast. Mika's injury was really serious and we expected some difficulties, but as usual Mika has surprised us registering interesting lap times. We are not far from the firsts as from the first to the twelfth rider there is only one second of distance and we are right there ready to step inside the fastest group."
Mika Kallio - Pramac Racing Team - 13th lap time in 1'24.090:
"Sometimes I hit the top part of the injured finger on the clutch and it hurts so bad, but the only thing I can do is grit my teeth and continue to fight on track. I didn't take any painkiller and I don't think I will need it in the rest of the weekend. For sure it is not simple to use the clutch like in the other races. Without this problem I could have been faster today as I wouldn't need to take some time to evaluate the situation of the injury. I know there are some part of the track where I can sensibly improve and tomorrow we should take a big step forward in the standing."
Niccolò Canepa - Pramac Racing Team - 15th lap time in 1'24.908:
"To be the first time on this track things didn't go so bad. In addition with the wet track we lost a lot of time. Today I mainly concentrated to learn the track without modifying the bike at all. Tomorrow we will start to try to improve the set up of the bike and in this way we expect to sensibly improve our lap times."
