Tough day in the sand for Team HRC

“I’m not so happy with this result today. The gate jump was good – a bit of a wheelie but I could keep the throttle open and until halfway along the straight I was with the top five. But then there was one rider from the outside who also had a good start and pulled across to the left going into turn one which meant I lost some speed and some positions into the first turn and then some more going into the second turn.

Then to come through the field is difficult. In the beginning I could make up many positions but then I lost a bit of my rhythm because I could never take my lines as there was always someone in front of me which made it more difficult. The track is tough, too. Underneath is rock hard and then you have the loose sand on top with the small berms and bumps. If you stay in the ruts, many times they get broken so it’s easy to fall out of them and go off track, or if you want to stay inside on each corner you slide a lot so that makes it difficult to choose where to go. We won’t make any changes to the bike for tomorrow, just keep it as it is and I hope I can make it better tomorrow.”

“Max struggled a little bit today. The track’s pretty fast and pretty smooth but you had to be careful today because it was getting rough but wasn’t rough enough yet to really suit Max. Hopefully that’ll roughen up properly for him tomorrow. They’ve been working on the track all day today to smooth it for the junior kids racing here, but by the second race tomorrow it should be rough and come to Max. He can ride these sort of conditions so there’s no reason with a good start he shouldn’t be ok.”