Texas, USA: Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) Racing Team rider Anthony West scored his first top result of the season, storming to seventh place at the Grand Prix of the Americas.
The Australian rider was tenth after the opening lap and the 31-year-old quickly moved up to fifth behind eventual winner Terol, Mika Kallio, Dominique Aegerter and Scott Redding.
But West couldn’t keep his position due to some problems with chattering and a lack of front end grip.
He still managed to defend sixth place until the last lap, when Frenchman Johann Zarco took advantage of West’s increasing problems with tyre grip.
Speaking of his performance in Texas, West said: “My start was good and the first laps went quite okay. I was not amazingly fast, but I felt comfortable where I was. I passed a few people, they fought back, but I passed them again and made a bit of a gap. I really felt like I could have caught the front group once I got passed those guys that were holding me up, but there was enough of a gap that I couldn’t catch them.”
He added: “One problem that I had was front end chatter, the other was that in return for improving the rear tyre grip, we lost some grip in the front and I was losing the front a lot. I was at the limit with how far I could push it and I was borderline to crashing. I still felt I had the speed to catch Redding in the end, because he dropped of a little bit, but my bike wasn’t allowing me to do it. I am also bit upset that Zarco passed me on the last lap.”
The Australian said despite the problems, he was satisfied with his performance in Texas.
He said: “Overall, it is a good result for us, good for the championship to get points and good in terms of the information we got for the continuation of the season. We are getting closer and closer to the front group, we just need to sort a few set-up issues. But the guys are doing a really good job and I am sure we can fix these issues for the next races!”
Meanwhile, the difficulties of Rafid Topan Sucipto continued. This time, the GP rookie from Jakarta, Indonesia, struggled with a gearbox change from using second through sixth to first through fifth gear, which improved his speed in some sections of the track, but also caused him to hit neutral several time. He decided to pull into the pitstop for good.
After the race, Sucipto said: “When I would downshift through the gears under brakes in the race, I ended up in neutral several times, which caused me to run wide and got me close to crashing. I thought there might be something wrong with the bike, so I pulled in for a check.”
He added: “It turned out that my problem had only to do with our set-up change and with using first gear, which we hadn’t done in the practice sessions. I was considering to go out again after my pit stop, but I had lost my rhythm and my confidence entirely so we decided to stop!”
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