MotoGP GP of Australia – Phillip Island
Reale Avintia Racing rider Xavier Simeon scored his first world championship point in the MotoGP class at the Australian Grand Prix today. Throughout the weekend, he showed how competitive he is on Phillip Island, Even though he didn’t have the best possible start, he was able to recover several positions and fought until the end to make sure of his first point in the premier class.
His teammate Jordi Torres was not happy after the race, since he had a promising race pace in the warm-up practice this morning. But conditions changed again at Phillip Island. The warmer, sunny conditions and higher track temperatures for the race were no problem, but it was windy and this affected Torres more than expected.
The Reale Avintia Racing riders will now head to Sepang for the Malaysian Grand Prix, the 18th round of the MotoGP World Championship scheduled for November 2nd to 4th.
“I have a lot of problems with the clutch and once again, my start was horrible. I was last again, but this time at least I was able to recover some positions on the first lap. The bike was very good and I had the pace to fight between eleventh and fifteenth position. Ten laps from the end though, the left flank of the rear tyre was destroyed and I had to slow down. Therefore I’m a little bit disappointed. The weekend has been very good and I always felt strong, but we depend too much on tyre wear. Apart from this, I’m super happy about achieving my first MotoGP point and I want to thank my team because they helped me a lot since I got on this bike. In Malaysia we have to improve the start and work more with the tyres for the race. I hope to have fun again like here and score more points.”
“Today’s race has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. This morning in the warm-up I felt pretty strong and we had a very promising pace. But it was more windy in the race and tyres maybe did not reach the right working temperature on the first laps because twice I was close to a crash when I tried to push. This affected my confidence and I wasn’t riding comfortably throughout the race. I know what I have to do to go fast, but I lacked the confidence to do it. At least I’m gaining experience in every race and I hope things will go better in Malaysia. Sepang is a very long circuit and I’ll have to learn many things in a short time, because the other riders have done lot of kilometres over there. The heat will also be a new challenge for me. I hope to my level of fitness is high enough.”
