Reale Avintia Academy 77 – GP of Austria – Spielberg
The second day of free practice and qualification for the Austrian Grand PRix went quite well for Vicente Pérez and his Team Reale Avintia Academy 77. The rider from Valencia was 16th in the wet morning session with a best time of 1’45.381. Vicente also was very strong in the initial phases of qualifying, which started on a tarmac that was still damp and saw him in first position for a while. The track then dried up more and more and the team recommended for Pérez to go out with slick tyres for the last two exits. But Pérez preferred to continue with wet settings which lead to a mistake, when Pérez braked too hard on a dry spot and suffered a crash. With just a few minutes to go, the mechanics repaired his KTM in a race against the clock, but time ran out before Pérez could do another flying lap before the chequered flag came out.
In the race on Sunday, he will now start from the last place on the grid, but he remains confident about his chances to recover and to fight for world championship points.
“Quite like at Brno, we saw both sides of the coin. In the morning, everything went really well in the wet and the classification started well too, as long as the tarmac was still damp. I was first for a while and within the top five for a good part of the session. But when the team told me it was time to go out with slicks, I didn’t have the confidence and everything went wrong after that. I continued with rain tyres and crashed, losing all options to score a good practice result. I learned another lesson the hard way, but I’m still confident because I know I have the rhythm to catch up and return home with my first world championship points”.
