MotoGP GP de Malasia – Sepang
Reale Avintia Racing rider, Xavier Simeon, achieved his best qualifying result so far this season today at in Sepang International Circuit. Tomorrow he will start Malaysian Grand Prix from 15th place of the grid.
The weather played again a big role today and both qualifying sessions in MotoGP have been in wet conditions. Simeon did a good job in Q1 with the Belgian rider loosing a place in Q2 for just two tenths of a second. This positive result of Xavier Simeon, which today was the fastest Rookie of the day, has been sweet feelling for Reale Avintia Racing in Sepang.
The bitter part was for his teammate, Jordi Torres, who suffered a big crash during FP4 and he womnt be able to race tomorrow. He fractured one metacarpal of the thumb of his left hand. Without any warning from the marshals, Torres went from turn 10 to 11, opened the throttle and suffered a big high side because the track was competely wet. The weekend started very well for the Spanish rider, but it came to and end before than expected.
The time schedule for Sunday has been revised because of the forecast of inclement weather with the 20-lap-race, scheduled for 1pm local time.
“It was a shame because and we missed Q2 by just 0.2s. I feel really comfortable in wet conditions with this bike, but today was the first time his season we had completely wet conditions. I just had 15 minutes to give my best, and I was cautious in the first few laps and this was my mistake because the best laps of the tyre were the first laps. In the end I pushed and, although I improved, I lost Q2 by two tenths. But at the end of the day I am happy because it is my best qualifying of the year. Now I hope to have a wet race tomorrow, because, to be honest, we are struggling in dry conditions. Even so, we will see how the warm-up goes, although better if it rains.”
“Today was a disaster. We had the opportunity to do it very well and,it was completely the oposite. This morning the track still had some wet patches and I touched one and crashed in turn 9, but it was a very low speed crash. In FP4 the intention was clearly to pick up the pace for the race but, without warning, it has started to rain and had a big high side in acceleration. Luckily I only fractured the thumb of my left hand, but unfortunately the race weekend is finish for me. I will get surgery in Barcelona next week and we will see how it goes.”
