Rain spoils front row assault of Kallio and Aoyama at French 250cc GP
. By Bikeland Staff
World Championship leader Mika Kallio and his Red Bull KTM team-mate Hiroshi Aoyama had their chances of a front row position for the 250 cc French Grand Prix washed out when rain fell during the final qualifying session for Sunday's race.
Even though the track dried up towards the end of the session the remaining time was too short for Kallio, who had just found the right settings for his bike. The Finn did move up to sixth place on the starting grid but missed out on further improvements when he ran into traffic on his last and fastest lap. Aoyama also tried hard to get the best out of the drying track on the last minutes of the session but he wasn't able to rediscover the good feeling for the bike and eventually settled for tenth place.
Repsol KTM rider Julian Simon, who had been the fastest KTM 250 rider on day one in sixth position, also failed to improve on his previous best time. On Sunday he starts with Kallio in the second row in seventh position.
Mika Kallio (Red Bull KTM 250 - sixth in 1:38.790)
"The rain made it a difficult final qualifying session for us, maybe more difficult than for our opponents, because they already had good lap times under their belt. We struggled a lot on this track in the beginning. I didn't get the right feedback from the front and couldn't push the way I would have liked to. Today we found the solution with a different set-up for the rear shock absorber. Life as a racer can be really strange sometimes - you make an adjustment to the rear, but then you end up feeling a significant change on the front! This change helped me a lot, it made it much easier to go into the turns but obviously I would have needed some more laps. My lap time only started to come back at the end of the session. I was only one tenth of a second behind the leader after the first three sections on my last lap but then I ran into traffic."
Hiroshi Aoyama (Red Bull KTM - tenth in 1:39.197)
"We managed to improve the set-up of our bike bit by bit from the first practice session onwards and our lap times got steadily faster. I expected to continue with this progress in the final session but then it rained. The track dried out and some of the riders were able to put in some good lap times but even though I pushed I wasn't able to get back the good feeling for my bike and that showed up in the time sheets. I might have made the front row if it hadn't rained. Now I just hope for good weather tomorrow. Our dry set-up is good, so I'm confident for the race!"
Harald Bartol (Technical Director)
"We shouldn't just blame the weather conditions for our grid positions in the 250 cc class, because if others manage to go faster, we should be able to go faster, too. At the same time, our grid positions are no reason for concern, because the lap times are very closer together, and anything can happen in the race."