With a drastic change to the set-up of his Moriwaki Moto2 prototype racer, Team QMMF rider Anthony West turned things his way and achieved a promising 17th place on the first day of practice for the Portuguese Grand Prix. Since the 30-year-old Australian had came aboard for the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix, he had played with a higher seating position in order to get more weight on the front for better turning. Now at Estoril, he lifted the entire bike with a variety of changes to the front fork and rear suspension and improved his lap time by more than a second. This new set-up confirms the next development step of the Moriwaki chassis with a different engine position, which will arrive at the race track very soon.
West's team-mate Elena Rosell also completed a successful first day of practice at Estoril. The only female rider in the motorcycle Grand Prix racing started cautiously on a partially damp track in the morning, but gained confidence and speed as the day went on and ended up in 31st position.
Anthony West – 17th in 1.43,143
"When I first rode this bike at Qatar, I had a problem with too much weight on the rear of the bike. We then played with padding on my seating, which pushed me forward and improved the weight transfer and the feeling in the turns, but it wasn't enough. Now, we've moved the whole bike up by 20 mm, pushing the front fork down the triple clamps and heightening the rear shock with a different linkage and stuff like that. It was a bigger change than you would normally be doing on a race weekend and it took me really the whole session to understand what was going on because it was quite different, but in the end, we went clearly faster and we are quickest Moriwaki once again. This change sort of confirms what we need with the new chassis. The engine where it is now is way too low and we don't have the pitching and easy turning in the middle of the corner that we need. The bike is stable but it doesn't feel nice when you get to the middle of the corner and doesn't turn fast enough either. Being able to confirm what we need is an important step for us!"
Elena Rosell – 31st in 1.46,126
"We went out on a partly damp track this morning and it cost me a while to find my confidence, because I crashed in the race of Jerez one week ago in similar conditions. From this point on, we kept improving and I kept learning the track. We also got better lap times, which I managed to repeat quite consistently. My hope for tomorrow is for better weather that will finally dry up the damp patches around the track. It also became obvious once again what a tough and hard-fought category Moto2 really is – the fastest guys rode quicker than the CRT bikes in the MotoGP category, which is mind-boggling. All we can do is to keep fighting and to keep learning. But considering it was only my second time on this track today, things didn't go too bad at all!"
QMMF Racing Press Release
