A difficult final pre season testing for Hiroshi Aoyama, however this did not deter the Japanese racer’s spirits.

Issues with rear grip created problems for the Interwetten Honda MotoGP competitor and his squad, that was was unable to be resolved prior to the close of play, however an improved front feeling with the prototype was positive.

“It has been a bit of a hard day for us this second day in Qatar, but we started to work a little bit on set-up – yesterday was just to learn the track,” says Aoyama. “We improved the front feeling and the grip so it was positive for us, but we have a little bit of a bigger problem on the rear so we will try to find a solution.”

He adds, “In the time we had here we could not find the right solution, so it was a little bit hard. We kept working on it and we will see how much we can improve in the race week.”

Aoyama’s team will now analyse the information gathered over the tests and work on improvements that can be made prior to the initial race of the campaign in Qatar on April 11th. 

Aoyama’s crew chief Tom Jojic commented, “The second Test day was not easy for us. We are not yet where we have to be at this race track and Hiro needs some laps with the fast riders to learn from them. But even though he had problems with the rear we were able to improve his feeling for the front of the bike and that is a positive point about this Test. He was much happier today than yesterday.”

Jojic adds, “I am not sure what I should expect from the Grand Prix and I don’t want to say anything, but I think a top-ten result would be a realistic target.”