Today, Monday 3rd March, the 125cc and 250cc riders gave the final touch to the 2008 World Motorcycling Championship pre-season. Next Friday, in this…
Esteve Rabat on his KTM 125 FRR, and Julián Simón on his KTM 125 FRR today finished the three days of training in Losail prior to the first Grand Prix of the season. While it was Esteve Rabat who had a taste on the first day of who hard the Qatar tarmac is, today it was Simón’s turn, though fortunately he came out unscathed. Simón, who was trying out a softer front tyre with more grip, fell on curve no. 15, the fast left before the right-hand curve approaching the finish line, when his bike suddenly lost adherence. In spite of the fall, the Repsol rider continued with his training schedule using his spare bike. Rabat continued with tests on suspension, tyres, and adjusting various parts of the engine and his riding style in order to build up more speed on the Qatar track. At the end of the third and last of the training sessions, Simón completed a total of 56 laps with a best time of 2’00”974 secs. Rabat did 72 laps on the Losail track; his best time was 2’07”769 secs. KTM riders Hiroshi Aoyama and Mika Kallio, who receive technical support from Repsol, have completed their last day of training of the 2008 pre-season without incident, always maintaining positions among the fastest riders in the quarter-litre category.
Julián Simón
“It has certainly been another tough day, because we were unable to find the ideal setup, but anyway, in spite of that the team has done a very good job and we are all very aware that it’s a new bike and that we are working under quite unusual conditions. Nevertheless, today we took a step forward, and I’m confident that we’ll have a good weekend here in a few day’s time. We’ve had a postive progression over these three days and that’s what’s important. Right now I’m really looking forward to Friday, to compete in the first night World Motorcycling Grand Prix. I think they have done a great job with the lighting on the track”.
Esteve Rabat >> Audio
“Another complicated day. Today the track was dirtier than previous days, there was more wind that blew a lot of dirt on the track. I was very close to falling a number of times; we still have problems with the suspension, there are still too many rebounds and we didn’t manage to finish setting up the bike. That prevented me from riding faster, the same as the first two days. I can see that those ahead of me are at a great distance for now, and we have to improve. I can’t seem to be able to ride faster on this bike. We’ll see what happens next weekend”.
