Reale Avintia Racing – GP of Catalunya– Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya
The Grand Prix of Catalunya started in a positive way for Reale Avintia Racing riders Tito Rabat and Xavier Simeon. Rabat finished the opening day in 11th place with a best lap time of 1’39.851 and he has a strong race pace for Sunday. He now hopes to go straight to the Q2 qualifying session for the Top Ten riders of the MotoGP class tomorrow and also to score a top result at his home Grand Prix on Sunday. The Spaniard, who suffered a big crash during the test held at this track a few weeks ago, is happy with the new tarmac and the revised layout, even though he thinks there is room for improvement in certain areas.
Xavier Simeon made a step forward at the Catalonian venue. With a best lap time of 1’40.697, he finished 21st in the combined standings. The MotoGP rookie is on the right track and he is getting closer to achieve his goal that he set at the beginning of the season: to battle within the top 15 places.
The expectations are high for tomorrow’s qualifying sessions and the riders, together with the team, are giving their 100% to honour Andreas Pérez in the race on Sunday.
“The first day at my home Grand Prix was very positive, as we found a good pace and did some fast laps. We finished 11th today, but I’m confident to be faster tomorrow. We have to keep working to find another few tenths of a second tomorrow. The track surface is very good, it’s really fast now, but the problem is that there is only one race line and if you miss it and get off line, it’s dirty and tricky.”
“I’m happy because this morning we finished in 16th place and we were 20th in the afternoon. Even better, we improved our pace on every exit. We are stronger, but we need to keep going in this direction to get closer to the top 15. We improved a lot, also compared with the test we did here, and this is the most positive thing about today. To be faster is good for my morale, because even thoough I was closer to the other riders in the last few races, I always was behind them. Now it’s time to rest and we will push again tomorrow.”
