MotoGP GP of Japan – Twin Ring Motegi
Reale Avintia Racing riders Xavier Simeon and Jordi Torres finished today’s Japanese Grand Prix in 16th and 17th place.
Xavier Simeon had a poor start from the penultimate row of the grid and he did his best to recover during the race. But even though, these first few laps cost him a lot of time and he lost contact with the group of riders that eventually scored points.
On his third race with Reale Avintia Racing, Jordi Torres made a big step forward. Motegi is a circuit where the Spaniard always struggled in the past, but on this occasion, he improved in every session. Today in the race, he was challenging his teammate until the chequered flag. He also discovered more things on his bike and the Michelin tyres.
The next MotoGP World Championship round takes place in Phillip Island in five days.
“To be honest, I think my race today was very good. I clocked decent lap times and I was close to score points. The biggest problem today was the start. I’m not able to start well with this bike and in the first lap I found myself in last position. At the beginning of the race my pace was not the best and I lost contact with the group that was fighting for points. I leave Japan with mixed feelings, because today I had the pace to score points and we didn’t succeed. On the other hand I’m happy, because this weekend was really positive. I was very comfortable with the bike and we were closer. The team did an excellent job and they keep helping me a lot to improve.”
“The weekend was positive, although I made some mistakes and I crashed. But all in all, the weekend was very good. And even more so considering what a difficult circuit Motegi is, with a lot of hard braking, where it is easy to make mistakes. I tried to ride the bike in a smoother way. I had a good start and overtook some riders, but a little later on the grip level dropped and I decided to try and change my riding style to stay competitive. I managed to adapt to the change in tyre performance, which had been my target, and to achieve it was for sure the most positive thing of the weekend.”
