It was on the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit, located in the province of Santiago del Estero in Argentina, that the second meeting of the 2016 MotoGP season kicked off.
Impatient to take to the track on the handlebars of his Ducati GP14.2 after a first race interrupted prematurely, Loris Baz faced the particular conditions of the Argentinian track.
This morning, despite a dusty track and strong heat, the French driver managed to climb into 13th position, a little more than a second behind the reference time. Author of a time of 1'45.080, he managed to improve by almost two seconds this afternoon by approaching the 1'43 mark. 16th in the combined ranking of the two sessions, Loris is convinced of being in the right direction to approach the top 10 tomorrow. Despite a high probability of rain, the motivation of Haut-Savoyard is at its maximum.
« Just like last year, the track is very dirty here. There has been no activity on this route since December and the track was full of sand. I think it's worse this year. Last year, the best time in the first session was 1'41 while, this morning, the best was around 1'43.
This first day was complicated. I was losing the front everywhere. This phenomenon does not only concern us, since everyone suffers from it. The Hondas seem to be doing a little better. It's difficult to decide whether to tune the bike for these conditions when they change tomorrow or wait. We still found some solutions. The ranking is very tight. It's not where I want to be, but I'm only four tenths out of the top 10. We hope the track moves in the right direction tomorrow.
If it rains tomorrow, I have no fears. On the other hand, if it rains and the track remains as dirty as ever, we plan to set up a bike differently to find a minimum of 'grip'. Tomorrow it should be cooler and things should stabilize.«
