Josh Hook (24th) progresses, Robin Mulhauser struggles
Thomas Lüthi (Derendinger Racing Interwetten) is one of the strongest men in the Moto2 class on the circuit of Phillip Island that hosts this Sunday – in early morning hours, start scheduled for 5:20am Swiss time – the Australian Grand Prix, the sixteenth round of the 2015 World Championship, with only two rounds to go. Fourth overall at the end, he only missed the front row by 97 thousands of a second. Just as interesting as his overall performance is the number of fast laps completed by the best Swiss representative in this championship, who has a nice ambition ahead of Sunday’s race. Joshua Hook (Technomag Racing Interwetten), replacing Dominique Aegerter, continued his apprenticeship in this category, while his teammate Robin Mulhauser (Technomag Racing Interwetten) had another difficult day as he hurt himself on this circuit twelve months ago and he struggles to find confidence. A summary of the practice with the head of CGBM Evolution, the company owning the two Swiss teams, Frédéric Corminboeuf: “Today was a good day for Tom, both quality and quantity-wise, which is important for the race. He was so close to a front row start, which is a pity but the team did an amazing job. On Friday evening we spoke a lot at dinner and we came up with an idea to modify the chassis as we did this morning. The performance of Josh is interesting; he is still learning and I am sure that if he could do a few more laps he would continue to move up in the classification. He wants to do well in front of his home crowd and maybe he put too much pressure on himself at the beginning of the qualifying session. Robin’s situation is more complex: he does not manage to conquer the circuit, the circuit conquers him. He is not consistent, not relaxed, it hurts to see him there like that because I know that it is not his place. His potential is much bigger, but it is not enough to say that, it has to be applied throughout the weekend.”
They said…
Joshua Hook (Technomag Racing Interwetten, 24th): "Today’s qualifying was difficult. We tried a different set-up but it sent us backwards. I stopped to change the bike back to the configuration we used in free practice this morning and it was better, although I thought, I hoped, to be more in the front. We worked a lot with the technical team to continue our progress and to give me a more comfortable bike.”
Robin Mulhauser (Technomag Racing Interwetten, 29th): “Compared to Friday, I have the impression that the psychological barrier that was stopping me yesterday in the place where I crashed last year has disappeared but I simply cannot get where I want to be. Me and the bike are not one body, the bike does not do what I want. I admit that I am a bit lost on this circuit; when we look at the data, we can see that there is no longer one place where I lose a lot of time but it is everywhere a little bit which makes a lot at the end of a lap. I know that other riders in front of me have suffered in Phillip Island and I have to try to break the barrier.”
