Hector Barbera finishes Le Mans 18th, takes positives from difficult weekend
The rain that fell at the end of the Moto2 race completely soaked the track for the Moto GP start, making things more difficult, because neither Friday’s nor Saturday’s sessions had been held in the wet.
Only in the morning’s warm up session the track had been damp. But with the warm up being only a short session it’s very difficult to properly work on the wet set up.
Héctor Barberá struggled to feel comfortable on the bike because on top of the rain he had to deal with the discomfort that his injured finger caused him.
Although one could think that on a short circuit and in the wet the CRTs should be closer to the prototypes, but the fact is that the more sophisticated electronics of the latter gives them an advantage when the road is wet.
The technicians of the Avintia Blusens team experienced this firsthand, but they leave Le Mans with a lot of information about the behavior of their bikes in the wet. This data can be applied in the future when such weather conditions recur.
#8 Héctor Barberá – 18th
We really can’t say it’s been a good weekend. Initially we were well placed within the 3 top CRT bikes, but afterwards, with the crash, everything got more complicated.
Even though it wasn’t heavy, the rain arrived just before the race, and as you can imagine, it made everything more difficult. The race was hard because we did not have many reference points with this bike in the wet, and even though we changed a few things during warm up, it wasn’t enough to be competitive. We tried to do the best we could but it wasn’t easy.
The injury on my hand didn’t help with handling the bike in the wet when you need more feel and precision, and I didn’t feel comfortable and lacked confidence.
I think there has been an accumulation of determining factors that made this weekend far from ideal, but on a positive note, we now have valuable data and experience with the bike in wet conditions. We now just have to focus on Mugello.
Source: Avintia Racing
