DIFFICULT DAY FOR TEAM FORTUNA YAMAHA
The FORTUNA YAMAHA team went through a tough second day of
action at the British Grand Prix for different reasons today.
Today the weather was less of an obstacle than it had been
yesterday and the rain finally stayed away from Donington
Park. In any case the track conditions at the famous English
circuit, colder than usual at this time of year, caused a
high number of crashes in each of the three categories. RUBEN
XAUS will start tomorrow’s race from the fifth row of
the grid. This afternoon he set the fourteenth fastest time,
1.993 slower than Rossi’s pole time. The FORTUNA YAMAHA
team rider could have improved on his position if it wasn’t
for a crash in the closing stages of the session that ended
what looked like being his fastest lap of the day. Despite
that, Xaus has demonstrated notable progress from the first
session yesterday and is in optimistic mood ahead of tomorrow’s
race. TONI ELIAS, meanwhile, is still struggling with the
physical effects of the injuries he sustained in the French
Grand Prix. Tomorrow he will undergo a painkilling injection
to reduce the pain in his left hand. Today he ran off track
just after putting on a qualifying tyre, preventing him from
ending the session in the way he had hoped. Despite that,
the Spaniard was happy with the race pace he managed to put
together, if not his qualifying lap time.
Ruben Xaus (11): 14th (1.29.890) + 1.993 (lap 25/29)
“The performance of our factory colleagues in blue
shows that this is a good bike. The problem is that for the
past 15 years I have ridden in a completely different manner
to what the Yamaha demands. To go fast on this bike you have
to start by going slower. You have to open the gas only a
little bit, be smooth and sweet… but I have always been
a fighter, a scrapper… and it seems that these characteristics
don’t suit this bike, which is not helping me to go
fast. It’s a shame that I crashed on the last lap because
I could have broken into the top ten but tomorrow I’ll
try to be fighting as close to the front as possible and keep
working as hard as always.”
Toni Elías (24): 17th (1.30.342) + 2.445 (lap
22/29)
“The hand is still quite painful. I hope the pain gets
less and less as the season goes on. This afternoon I already
had an injection but I could still feel the pain. The gap
between myself and the top riders is partly because of the
injury but also because of a few technical problems which
I’m confident we can sort out between now and tomorrow’s
race.”
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