The sun and the sky finally appeared this Sunday on the majestic Phillip Island track. Loris Baz and the Avintia team hoped to be able to shine on a track that the Frenchman likes and on which the winter test went well.
If this morning Loris had regained good sensations on the handlebars of his Ducati GP14.2, the Frenchman once again had bad luck in the race. His first motorbike broke down during the reconnaissance lap. Went to the box to get his second machine, it turned out that it suffered from the same problem. Loris was therefore forced to retire, barely completing the first lap of the race.
Loris is now focusing on the next event at Sepang in Malaysia where he hopes to be able to thwart bad luck and reveal his racing potential before closing the season in Valencia next month.
“Both my bikes broke down just before the start of the race. During the reconnaissance lap, the first motorcycle showed signs of failure. I returned to the box to take the second one which, ultimately, suffered from exactly the same problem. The team tried to resolve the problem on the starting grid. Initially, I quickly realized that the problem was still present. I went to the box to take the other bike after the mechanics changed the settings, but the problem persisted. So I gave up.
These are electronic problems that we have been suffering from since the start of the weekend and which brought me down on Saturday. It's a shame, because the bike behaved quite well this morning and I found good sensations again. Luck is still not on our side and we can only hope that it will be there in 2017.
It was a weekend that we were looking forward to, because it's a circuit that I love. Even if the weather was not good on Friday and Saturday, there was definitely the possibility of having a good race and scoring a few points.
Ducati and the team are working hard to find a solution to these problems which can be dangerous. Hopefully we can get to the root of the problems by the time we get to Malaysia next week so we can end the overseas tour on a good note! »
