This Saturday was more difficult for Loris Baz and the Avintia Racing team in Qatar. The constant changes on the track pushed the French driver to make a mistake at the start of the last free practice session.
As a result, Loris missed out on his place in Q2. In order to prepare for the race as best as possible, the team will put the Ducati GP14.2 back in the configuration found during the last winter test, and with which it felt good. Loris hopes to gradually move up the rankings and be able to score big points at the end of this opening race of the 2016 MotoGP season.
« It's the type of day where unfortunately not many things work. From the start of FP4, I fell without really understanding the reasons. I started again on the second bike, but there were some problems and I only managed to do one lap. On the other bike I was suffering from 'dribbling' and we thought it was the tyre. During Q1, it turned out that I had no feeling at the front and I couldn't ride as I wanted. I almost fell more times in two laps than in all of the winter tests. I tried to do the best I could, but I knew it was going to be difficult to get through to Q2.
Tomorrow we will put the bike back in the same configuration as during the test. I think we got slightly lost in the settings with this track changing a lot and slipping. The track returns to the state it was in during the test and on which I felt good. Of course, there will be more work starting 16th, but the race is long and the ranking is tight. I'm going to try to run a race without mistakes and work my way back up little by little.
Regarding the tires, we were not able to do any simulation during FP4, but during the last test we drove well. You will have to be careful not to make a mistake with the fuel during the first few laps. The front and rear soft tires are very consistent. I have no worries about that, we will just have to learn from this first race. The objective will be to keep pace and score the most points.«
