Heat of Argentina melts down Kallio’s hopes for front row

One of the fastest men of Friday’s free practices in the Moto2-class of GP of Argentina, Mika Kallio, suffered a disappointment during the qualifying of today. The finn was an 0,89 seconds slower than the quickest man on track, Johann Zarco, and ended up on position 10 on the start grid. The qualifying practice was once again fierce due to tiny margins, since 13 riders managed to stop the clocks within a second’s reach of the pole setter Zarco. 

 Most of the challenges faced by Kallio had to do with the high temperatures on track due to hot weather and tyres not responding well to the conditions. 

 -We rode with the soft tyre mix on Friday with good results, but the track was a lot cooler at that point. Now when the weather conditions changed, we noticed a loss on the grip and the rear tyre became too hot. Our tyre provider, Dunlop, actually warned us about dangerously high temperatures of the rear tyre, which rode up to 120-140 degrees during my qualifying. Others teams apparently did not face the same problem, so we we are trying to figure out how to prevent the overheating on Sunday, an unsatisfied Kallio reported. 

 -We had a few fast laps coming up there, but unfortunately some of them got ruined by the traffic and some should have been finished better by me. I was aiming for the front rows in qualifying and obviously am disappointed for not reaching them. Tomorrow we will try again and for sure I need to improve too to reach the pace I am looking for. 

 During the qualifying practice many previous lap records were smashed, but Kallio explains that there is a natural reason for this. 

 -A total of 16 riders, including me, broke the lap record of last year. This is a normal and well expected thing, as the track’s surface gets better after each session. If the times hadn’t improved, I would have thought something is wrong. 

 Kallio does not want to make any predictions for Sunday’s race, but says that there is a good possibility to make a decent result. 

 -When riding with the same tyres for a long time, there is always a risk with the softer option mix that the grip will disappear towards the end. This time it did not happen when we tested the tyres in free practices, so if the start goes well I might have a chance in catching some of the front guys, Kallio finished. 

The live broadcast of the GP of Argentina at Las Termas de Rio Hondo track will air on Finnish tv at Nelonen Pro 1 on Sunday, 20:05pm local time.

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