Thumbs up for KTM Night Riders at Qatar tests
 All
three KTM 250 riders set themselves up for a successful opening
to the season with strong performances in the final official
texts ahead of the opening GP - the first- ever night race
on the Losail Racing Circuit in Qatar next weekend.
Red Bull KTM star Mika Kallio rode to second place in the
final night-time practice on the brightly illuminated, desert
racing circuit, closely followed by Julian Simón, Spain's
hope in the newly established Team Repsol KTM while Kallio's
factory team- Hiroshi Aoyama was in fourth place. In the combined
practice times of all three days, Aoyama holds sixth place
(2:00.551) ahead of Kallio (2:00.595) in seventh and Simón
in tenth position (2:00.974). The scene is therefore set for
these three riders to be among the front runners in the fight
for the 250cc world championship title.
Brand new conditions
Testing at night gave KTM teams and riders the opportunity
to refine set-ups on the new chassis of the KTM 250 FRR and
to become accustomed to the floodlighting and lower track
surface temperatures which drop to just over 20 ° Celsius
at midnight. The new chassis has proved its worth during tests
at slower race tracks like in Valencia or Jerez de la Frontera
and now must be measured against the fast Losail circuit with
its sweeping bends and its 1.1 km-long main straight.
Kallio confident
Although Kallio had a couple of falls on the first of three
testing days he settled in and confirmed his position as one
of the top-contenders in this category. "We established
a good base set-up with our new chassis at the tests in Valencia
and Jerez, but we had to start all over again here in Qatar.
The Losail track is faster. It has higher corner speeds but
the overall grip level is lower - partly because of the sand
that blow across the circuit and partly because of the lower
asphalt temperatures. At first the feeling for the bike was
a whole lot different then we made changes to the suspension
set-up and the chassis geometry. Making the bike shorter overall
helped a lot, I got a good feeling for the front end and I
managed to put in a good lap time on a used rear tyre,"
Mika, confirming that night riding was "no problem"
for him.
Highway riding
Kallio's Red Bull KTM factory teammate Hiroshi Aoyama also
said he had no problem with the night riding. "It was
a strange feeling to go on the race track and ride in the
dark in the beginning but I got used to it after three days
of testing. It feels a bit like riding on a highway!"
He said concerns about lower track temperatures also turned
out to be no problem. "We've already found the right
tyre choice for the race. The different situation with a different
track and a completely different ambience also lead to a different
feeling for the bike, but we also managed to sort this out,
and found a good set-up. There is still a lot of work ahead
of us on the race. I want to go faster so we need to improve
our set-up further!"
Simón adjusts to lights
Julian Simón from Repsol KTM said it took him a while
to adjust to the floodlit course. He said that under brakes
"there are a lot of irritating shadows surrounding you".
"But I rode many laps in these tests and eventually I
got used to the conditions." Simon had a crash on the
fast left hand corner of the circuit on the last day but without
any serious consequences. He confirmed he had "a great
feeling for the bike" after the Jerez tests and underlined
that the Qatar circuit needed different set-ups. All three
riders said they wanted to reserve their best tyres for the
race on Sunday.
Strong line-ups for KTM-supported teams
Esteve Rabat from Repsol KTM was without teammate Marc Marquez
for the Qatar tests, who is nursing an injured arm and his
team was also working hard on suspension and gear ratios to
suit the Losail circuit. Pablo Nieto and Raffaele de Rosa
of Onde 2000 KTM also registered times among the top 10 in
the course of the three test days and other KTM riders who
will definitely need to be watched are Tomoyoshi Koyama (ISPA
KTM Aran team), his teammate Italian Lorenzo Zanetti and Red
Bull's own Randy Krummenacher. He crashed on day two but escaped
with a sore foot and reported good progress with setups ahead
of the first GP.
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