Repsol Honda Team commence final pre-season test in Qatar

“Today we started our test in Qatar looking to find a base setup and focusing on electronics. The engine was a bit aggressive at first, but in the end we managed to find a way to improve the setting and be smoother. We need to improve some more, but it was good for it being the first day, and now we have two more sessions to keep working and try to be as consistent here as we were at the previous tests. We know that this track is a bit more challenging for us compared to others, but I enjoy it and we’re not that far off. Tomorrow we’ll start to go deeper on a few details.”

“We started the day well and did several good runs, considering that the track is always a bit dirty here the first day. Unfortunately, I first had a small crash that might have been my fault, and a few laps later I had another, bigger one, in turn 2. I may have hit a bump there or went a bit off line, I don’t know; for sure that spot is quite tricky, and I lost the front very quickly. After that we decided to stop for the day. Apart from that, the feeling on the bike was quite good and we were able to keep a good rhythm. Tomorrow we’ll keep working on the bike’s setting and see how the track improves and which tyres we’ll use. This track is challenging, as conditions change from day to day, and also the temperature drops quite a lot when evening falls. We’ll need to do more laps to try and better figure out the general setup before going into more detailed testing.”