2015 Championship: We are back!
It's done and dusted: the first official lap times of the 2015 season have been recorded under the spotlights - and with a few drops of rain! - of the circuit of Losail, about 20 kilometres north of the capital city of Qatar, Doha. After the winter tests that were accompanied by difficult weather conditions, the Moto2 riders could finally take advantage, for at least one session and a half, of a dry track and a pleasant temperature (23 degrees at 10pm).
However, rain made a quick appearance even here, in the middle of a desert, in the final moments of the day. The best Swiss representative today was Thomas Lüthi, who was classified 6th in the provisional standings. All his countrymen were less successful as they were all in the second half of the classification. Frédéric Corminboeuf, the head of CGBM Evolution and the owner of the teams Derendinger Racing Interwetten and Technomag Racing Interwetten commented: "We knew when we arrived here in Qatar that we did not do enough riding because of the bad weather in Europe. In fact, we started testing today and the day went really well for Tom Lüthi. Of course the gap between us and those, who dominated this Thursday is significant, but I know that Tom will catch up quickly. Robin Mulhauser had the worst day he could have imagined with an electronic issue earlier this evening and a clutch failure in the second session; what a pity because Robin would able to do a lot better. And Dominique Aegerter: if you watch him ride, you can see that he is stiff on the bike, he still needs to find more confidence with his new machine. That being said, there is no logical reason why he shouldn't find all his means very quickly."
And what they said...
Dominique Aegerter (Technomag Racing Interwetten, 25th): "I'm still far off, unable to find the required speed in the fastest corners of the circuit. To do that you need to let the bike live and I am not capable of doing that. Is that a mental or rather a technical problem? I wish I knew the answer. I think that everything is ok in my head only I am not capable of getting where I want. There is a huge pressure on me for sure. I always needed to ride a lot and as we know, the last two months were not the best because of the weather. Today we worked on some small adjustments; tomorrow we will try a few different things with the geometry."
Robin Mulhauser (Technomag Racing Interwetten, 30th): "I was looking forward to riding so much. But I really didn't have a good day. On my third lap I experienced first ignition cuts, then the shifter that changes speed stopped working. And even worse, when I went out for the second session I immediately realised that there was something wrong with the clutch. I had to stop twice before we found what was wrong. There were only 10 minutes left when I went back out and that was when the rain appeared! Today was a day to forget."
