Celestino Vietti and Deniz Öncü enjoy a productive Wednesday on the first day of the Jerez test.

The Red Bull KTM Ajo Moto2 team is at the Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto this week, where they have taken part in the first day of the last official pre-season test. Celestino Vietti and Deniz Öncü made the most of the three sessions to get further acquainted with their bikes ahead of the 2024 campaign. Vietti and Öncü were 14th and 25th, respectively, overall.

Vietti started the day well and made good progress, despite the fact that the track temperature was somewhat low early in the morning. The Italian set his best time on the last lap of Session 1, taking fourth place. Unfortunately, he suffered a small crash at the beginning of the second session that prevented him from remounting and improve his laptime. In the final session, Vietti continued working to find a good setup, and he completed a total of 56 laps overall. His 1:41.738 lap, achieved this morning, put him 14th.

Öncü arrived in Jerez raring to go, having not had as much track time as expected in Portimao due to the weather conditions. The Turkish rider is working hard to quickly adapt to a new class and riding style. The Red Bull KTM Ajo Moto2 rider was comfortable, which was reflected in his improvement in lap times since the start of the morning. He made his way into the Top 15 at one point, and completed three very positive sessions with his team, achieving his best time in the third. In total, he put in 79 laps and finished 25th on the combined timesheets, with a 1:42.389.

Vietti and Öncü will be back on track on Thursday from 11:20 AM local time.

Combined Results (Day 1)
1. Aron Canet (Kalex) 1:41.136
2. Joe Roberts (Kalex) 1:41.158 +0.022
3. Jake Dixon (Kalex) 1:41.164 +0.028
4. Fermin Aldeguer (Boscoscuro) 1:41.283 +0.147
5. Ai Ogura (Boscoscuro) 1:41.301 +0.165
14. Celestino Vietti (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 1:41.738 +0.602
25. Deniz Öncü (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 1:42.389 +1.253

#13 CELESTINO VIETTI

“I’m happy, as we’ve started in a good way and also the weather is helping us to work better. Unfortunately, I crashed in the first part of the second session, so we couldn’t improve our feeling, but I’m quite happy because in the last session we started better and had more speed. Tomorrow we will start from there and continue working to improve the bike and my riding style.”

#53 DENIZ ÖNCÜ

“It’s our first day here, we’ve done 79 laps and I’m quite positive at the moment about how we’ve started. Now I’m beginning to understand the bike and the riding style I need. At the moment, we are just enjoying ourselves and trying to understand how to ride the Moto2 bike. We will keep working tomorrow.”