Kallio’s misfortune sees no end in Barcelona

Mika Kallio had high expectations towards Saturday morning in the GP of Barcelona. Unfortunately he faced yet another bitter disappointment, as the awaited new front fork from Öhlins was faulty upon arrival. The good weather of sunny Catalonia was pretty much the only positive thing about the day and Kallio faces yet again a rough Sunday start, this time from position 22. 

 -We begun the day with a brand new upgraded front fork, but after the first fast lap I noticed directly that something was completely wrong. I entered the pits and we realised immediately that the fork was faulty upon arrival and broken beyond use. We lost nearly half the practice due to this and I had to finish using an old standard fork, a disappointed Kallio reflected. 

 The qualifying practice offered no consolation, as Kallio finished 22nd, even though he managed to improve his pace a bit. 

 -Actually the only thing to be happy about is that I managed to squeeze some time off my personal best lap this weekend. That does not help unfortunately, as other riders pulled off the same improvement as well. We still face the exact same problems as in the season beginning, and nothing seems to help. Riding is extremely challenging as the feeling is quite bad and I realise that we are running out of things to do, Kallio sighed. 

 The next step according to Kallio is a risky move, which concerns weakening the grip at the back. It unfortunately seems that good back grip dramatically increases problems with the front. This is a matter of playing with the option “less worse”, which obviously does not satisfy in the end. 

 -It might seem like a silly option to reduce the grip at the back, but we are honestly out of tricks to play and need to do something anyhow. If we ride for positions 20-25 with these settings, it really does not matter if things go worse. We have focused on working with the front all the season, so now we’ll concentrate on the rear since no solution is found yet, Kallio finished

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