Xavier Simeon is hoping to make improvements to the Mistral 610 overnight after struggling in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix. The Tech 3 rider admitted that he'd been lacking confidence with the bike throughout the weekend which continued on Saturday afternoon, leaving him down in 23rd on the grid.
Simeon is not giving up hope of a points finish in tomorrow's race but admits he needs to study the data with crew chief Naoya Kaneko to try and optimize his set-up.
“At the beginning the qualifying went not too bad. Unfortunately I did not improve my qualifying lap time like I wanted, as I was too slow. I experienced a lack of grip on the right side of the tyre and did not feel confident to go faster. We still improved every session, but not enough. It is a new track, but still we should not be so slow and do so small steps session by session. I am obviously not happy with my starting position for tomorrow’s race and with the way the qualifying went. I will check the data we collected with my crew chief this evening and then we will see if we can find something to improve for tomorrow.”