Aegerter hungry to race, Mulhauser too tense
Thomas Lüthi (Garage Plus Interwetten) was strong again on the Losail circuit in Doha (Qatar): during the second day of free practice, the Swiss representative improved his best lap time from yesterday by two tenths of a second and moved up to second position in the standings, behind impressive Sam Lowes from Britain, who set the new lap record of the Qatar circuit. The Moto2 category is again very competitive this season as there were fourteen riders in less than one second in the combined free practice classification. Next on the agenda on Saturday: the qualifying practice that will decide the starting grid for the first Grand Prix of the season (starts at 5:20pm Swiss time on Sunday). Eighteenth today, Dominique Aegerter (carXpert Interwetten) made a clear progress, which was, however, not the case for his teammate Robin Mulhauser. Frédéric Corminboeuf, the boss of the Swiss team, sums up the day in the following words: "Tom confirms that he is very fast and he has a good pace. Now we have to see how he can apply this in the race because some other riders are also impressive. The battle will be intense I think. Dominique is not far, he is getting closer to the front and the whole team will continue to work to give him a good bike for the qualifying. Robin's day was a lot more difficult: he went out with an old tyre and set a decent lap time for him; we thought that if we use a new tyre, he will improve immediately but it wasn't the case. We changed the set-up of the bike in every direction but it did not have any impact. I really hope that he does something on Saturday in qualifying."
They said...
Dominique Aegerter (carXpert Interwetten, 18th): "The day was positive for me. I have a better feeling with my bike, especially with the hardest tyre; on the other hand I am still not completely comfortable with the other tyre that has better grip. With that tyre, there is too much chatter. We are going to review our base for Saturday because, clearly, we are aiming a different technical direction than other riders that have the same 2016 Kalex machine. Of course, my riding style is different but it is not normal that I am last in this group."
Robin Mulhauser (carXpert Interwetten, 27th): "It is negative. We did not make a progress today and when we put new tyres on, I was not able to improve. I admit that I am a bit lost. I know I should be much faster. Is it me? Or the bike? We have to find a solution for qualifying because we cannot continue like this. We tried to use the base set-up that worked really well for Tom Lüthi, but that did not help me."
