A year after changing 125cc for 250cc ,Julián Simón faces this 2008 season excited about the change to KTM. The Repsol rider is in Jerez after a good pre-season with his new bike, and clearly states what his aspirations are for the upcoming 2008 season.
After your first year in 250cc, what are your goals for 2008? Our sights are set quite high. We have a very competitive bike that won the last two races in 2007. KTM’s goal, with Kallio, Aoyama or with me, is to win the World Title. Meaning that the goal for the Repsol KTM Team will be no less than that. We want to get to a good start this year, unlike last year, with injuries. Our goal will be to always be among the first, and why not, if all goes well, contest for the World Title.Who do you think your main rivals will be? The big advantage I have this year is that I will have a very strong reference by my side, Mika Kallio. I think the 125cc World Champion of two years back, Bautista, will also be running good races. I think they will be the two main references. Though right from the start we’ll make sure they don’t get away.This year you are riding a KTM again. What is your opinion on this bike? This bike is much more competitive than the one I had in 125cc some time back. I think they have done a brilliant job with this bike, and I’m sure it will improve race by race. I’m very happy to be back with this brand, which I have put a lot of hope into. I’m confident that we”ll have a great year together as we’re running with a great bike.What is work like within the Repsol KTM team? For the time being quite positive. In Jerez we carried out the first test with the 2008 bike, and it didn’t go too well, though we were able to collect a good deal of information to analyse later. We didn’t have the right setup for the bike because I wasn’t comfortable with the handlebars we had. But in Valencia all this changed. KTM soon sent us new handlebars, more similar to Honda’s, and I soon noticed the difference. I easily managed better times.What are your plans for the next training sessions, the Jerez MotoGP Test? For now I’ll continue with my physical training, mainly in order to stay mentally strong for the start of the season. I’ll enjoy some time with my family until the MotoGP Tests start, which is more or less when the adventure starts, because the Qatar tests will be just before the first race, and we’ll all start to look forward to the competition.
