After a positive first day, Loris Baz and the Avintia Racing team hoped to make it happen this Saturday during qualifying. Suffering from problems, the Frenchman tested several different tuning bases, to no avail.
Loris was unable to find solutions in time. He will start from 21st position on the starting grid. In front of his audience, Loris Baz
focus on the warm up to discover the settings that will make the difference in the race.
« It was one of the worst qualifications of my career. I've never had as many problems as I have today. The bike behaved well yesterday and I managed to do more than decent laps. We faced a few problems that we tried to resolve, but we were not successful.
We tried six different bike configurations today, and the problems still persist: the bike can't turn corners. This weekend, only the tire I haven't been able to ride on since the test at Phillip Island is available. Regardless of the circuits on which this tire is available, my feeling is the same. In Jerez, despite the dribble, I still managed to roll with it.
There is one more solution that we will try tomorrow morning. I will try to ride on the same tire as in Jerez and on a bike configured like Friday. This is a configuration that allows me to have more grip, but which does not correct the dribbling problem.
In high-level sport, there are no miracles. If we find a solution, I think a good comeback will be possible. At the moment, I don't yet know how I'm going to go about it. I just hope to find a solution to the warm up.«