With their riders on 10th (Luis Salom) and 19th (Brad Binder) on the grid for the Dutch TT RW Racing GP was not too happy. But the positions don’t tell the whole story. Looking at the lap times and the gap with front runner Sandro Cortese the riders did a good job.
Salom is only 0.7 off the pace: better than in Silverstone where he was 6th on the grid but 0.9 off the pace. The team took the gamble to build in a new engine. Normally they would test a new engine first, but this one came in just on Thursday. There was no time for testing and other riders that got the new engine earlier were faster with it. "In this case the engine was just not good,’’ chief engineer Hans Spaan admitted. "You always want the best material you can get, especially for the teams home race, but this was a wrong gamble.’’
Luis Salom (10th): "I am not happy. We tried the new engine but it is not fast enough. It is a big disappointment because I want to do the best I can. For the race we go back to the old engine. I just have to pass a little more riders, but I can still fight for the podium and maybe a victory.’’
Brad Binder (19th): "The position is shit, but the pace is good. I’m only 1.1 away from the pole position. I was riding together with Faubel and Fenati and everything was looking really good but I got held up by a slow rider in my fastest lap.’’
Team manager Johan Stigefelt: "It wasn’t perfect, but in the end it wasn’t too bad either. Everybody is very close. For the race I don’t see any problem. Any of the first ten can win the race.’’
RW Racing Press Release
