Toni Elias had a nightmare of a session for the first practice session for the season opener in Qatar after only completing 17 laps of the floodlit circuit.
The Moto2 World Champion only managed a time of 1:59.087s whilst struggling massively to find any sort of rear grip. The problems continuing from pre-season were only hampered by windy conditions at the Losail circuit which caused the track to also become sandy.
Speaking after the session, Elias was downbeat. “Unfortunately we are still struggling to adjust the bike and I can not lap as I would like. The rear is not stable and in these conditions I can not push to improve my lap time.” he said.
He then admitted the team are still trying to find some headway though. “We are working hard to fix the problem but apparently we have not found the correct way to follow. We have compared two different bike set up today without success. I still have big issues to brake aggressive and the bike is sliding to much especially in the corners exit. I do not like this situation but I am confident we can improve step by step”.
