Termas de Rio Hondo: QMMF Racing Team riders Anthony West and Roman Ramos had a strong start at the Grand Prix of Argentina. On the 4.8-kilometre track of Termas de Rio Hondo, a town about 1,200km northwest of Buenos Aires, West felt good almost immediately, and was on the pace in both free practice sessions on Friday. Only a tyre problem towards the end of the second session kept the 32-year-old Australian from improving further. Fourteenth in the classification so far, West was confident of climbing higher when it counts in qualifying yesterday.
Spaniard Roman Ramos, 23, bounced back from a slow start in the morning and improved his lap time by no less than 4.2 seconds to climb up to 27th in the classification sheet, only nine tenths of a second behind his experienced teammate and with more to come yesterday.
“The track was really slippery in the beginning, but it improved steadily. It’s nice to be on a new circuit and I really like the fast corners here, one turn especially, where you shift through the gears at full throttle and where you are sliding even in fifth gear. That’s really exciting,” said West.
“The bike is also feeling okay. In the morning, we had some small problems pushing the front, but for the second session, we managed to fix the bike and I could do many, many laps consistently fast. I could follow Rabat easily and felt really comfortable. Only in the end, I couldn’t further improve my lap time due to a small tyre problem: We swapped for the other rear tyre compound that I had used in the morning and the bike just vibrated and chattered around the whole track. Apart from that, I am happy with the way the bike is handling. Everybody I am coming up against, I feel I am on a good line, so I’m confident for the rest of the weekend!”
“When we went out for the first time, the track was very dirty and I found it very difficult to ride,” said Ramos. “My bike was not at 100 percent either, which is why we were too far behind in the beginning. But we improved the set-up a lot for the second free practice session and we managed to go faster by a full 4.2 seconds. The bike works really well now and I’m closer to the front than I ever was since I joined QMMF Racing Team at the beginning of the year. I want to thank everybody in my crew, because they really did a great job on the bike.”
THE PENINSULA
