Reale Avintia Racing riders Loris Baz and Hector Barbera will start tomorrow’s Austrian Grand Prix from twelfth and 14th place of the grid. Both riders were determined to get in Q2, but then it was just Baz who made it through with an excellent lap of 1’24.097 in FP3.
Hector Barbera was really close, but not quite fast enough. Later in Q1 he finished fourth just two tenths behind the fastest rider. It was a pity, because with his pace he would have been in tenth position in Q2. Nevertheless, the Spaniard is confident for tomorrow 28-laps encounter.
Loris Baz tried his best in Q2, but he didn’t have the same feeling from FP3 and he finished 12th. Like his teammate, Loris is still confident for the race as his rhythm is good enough to be fighting for a top ten result tomorrow.
“Until Q2 the day was almost perfect, but then everything went the wrong way. I was not able to put all together on my flying lap, I went long several times and I couldn’t find the feeling I had with the front tyre in the morning. But I’m quite satisfied because we tested a lot of ideas to be faster, and that’s the good thing about going straight into Q2. Finally the lap didn’t come, but it is not a big difference to start from the third or fourth row. The most important thing is that we did a great job so far this weekend. We did more than 20 laps in FP4 to learn about tyre performance and we will see what happens tomorrow. My goal is to finish the race in the top ten.”
“I was really close but finally it didn’t happen. I missed Q2 by just one tenth. Everything is really tight and we have been pushing during the whole weekend. Today we went faster compared to yesterday and I was fourth in Q1, only two tenths from the fastest rider. I lose too much in the lefthand corners, but we have some ideas to test during warm-up. I’m confident to recover in the race because my rhythm is quite good. I believe that we can have a strong race tomorrow.”
