Following the wet practice sessions on Friday, the MotoGP riders started in full attack mode in warm and sunny conditions today. FP3 became crucial today and although Reale Avintia Racing riders Hector Barbera and Loris Baz did their very best, they didn’t pass directly to Q2.
The only positive thing about today was Hector Barbera’s race pace in FP4, which made the Spanish rider confident on recovering some places during tomorrow’s 23-lap-race, which he will start from the 19th place of the grid. He will have the support of his home crowd, the best fans in the world, which means an additional boost of motivation for the race.
Loris Baz was faster than Hector in one single lap, and he will start the race from 17th place of the grid. But the Frenchman still have some work to do during the warm-up session to try to improve his feelings and his race pace.
“Today was a difficult day. Yesterday I said that it will be important to get the best base set up from the beginning, and we didn’t find it. All day long, the bike didn’t work at its maximum; we tried many changesm but we didn’t improve. We are losing time at many areas of the track although my best lap is not so bad. We must keep working and trying different things during warm-up to improve the rear grip, reduce the movements of the bike and get a better feeling. We’ll see how far we can get in the race. Once again, the goal will be the top ten.”
“The day didn’t go as planned, but unfortunately this is something that we have been experiencing from the beginning of the season. When I have to push hard for a lap time, I have too much chatter in the front which seems impossible to fix and which I’m not able to overcome with my riding style. I’m not comfortable riding the bike and this makes me brake before I should. It’s a shame because we always want to do the best in our home races. And although I’ll leave the team and the MotoGP class at the end of the season, I would love to celebrate a good result with Reale Avintia Racing team. I would like to finish the year with a sweet taste in the mouth, for my team, for the sponsors and also for myself. I’ll give my best tomorrow and I’ll try everything to be fighting for a top ten result, because this would be a big step in our preparation of the overseas triple.”
