Kallio ready for Qatar

The official and final winter tests of Moto2-class were wrapped up in Jerez on Thursday afternoon. The unpredictable and exceptionally wet and cold weather conditions dominated all pre-season tests and this week was unfortunately no exception. 

 Mika Kallio and his team, Italtrans, are however now ready for the season opening in Qatar. 

 -We have been riding in full rain during all the test days, but we have now done all we could and let’s see where it gets us. These kilometres have been very important to us, however we have not been able to properly test how the bike behaves on a dry track. Therefore comparison to other teams and riders is not possible, as everyone has been struggling with the challenging weather conditions more or less during the whole test period. The bike feels ok now, but the settings found vary anyhow a lot from those applicable on dry weather, stated Kallio after the tests. 

 -Now we have found a direction into which further develop the bike, especially concerning weight distribution. 

 Kallio is in his own words *as ready as in these conditions possible” for the season opening in Qatar. 

 -In Qatar we start free practices already on Thursday and try to figure out the right track-specific settings for the bike as quickly as possible. When this is done, we hopefully have time to attack the minor details yet unsettled and fine-tune the bike into perfect race condition. The most important thing is to get more kilometres done with the new bike, especially on a dry track. That hopefully creates confidence and trust towards the bike and leads into a good result, Kallio finishes. 

 The first race of the Moto2-season takes place in Qatar on the Losail track on 26th-29th of March.

 

picture: Ian Wheeler / Marc VDS

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