Stefan Bradl is confident that he and LCR Honda will be competitive in next weekend’s Grand Prix of Qatar after bringing his testing programme to a close at Jerez on Monday. The German was third fastest on the final day of testing, four tenths down on Cal Crutchlow, but with so little dry running possible, few conclusions can be drawn from the outright lap times.
Bradl did feel the limited mileage was worthwhile though as he looked to optimise his set-up ahead of the opening race and heads to the season opener optimistic of mixing it with the frontrunners.
“Today we just had 1 and half hour of acceptable track conditions after this morning rain showers. We confirmed our bike set-up from yesterday, which made me more confident with the front tyre and we made a further step forward. Then for the remaining laps, we tested a new set of tyres to improve our lap time and we had a good result despite some traffic in the last part of the session. Although we had here tricky conditions in the last 3 days, I think we are ready for the first race in Qatar which is a race track that I like”.
