Eugene Laverty makes his first competitive MotoGP appearance at the famous Red Bull Red circuit in Austria this weekend convinced the track is perfectly suited to increasing his championship s points.
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Following a discussion between FIM safety officer Franco Uncini and riders of the safety commission, it was decided that the final corner, known as Red Bull Mobile, should be tweaked to reduce exit speed.
Double world champion Casey Stoner said the layout was “strange” for bikes, having expressed concerns about the run-off area at Turn 2 before testing with Ducati.
While modifications to the Red Bull Ring, located close to Zeltweg, Austria, seem to be fluid-the dodgy final corner has been tightened up since the MotoGP test in July-Valentino Rossi used a word to describe the track today in the MotoGP pre-event press conference that one normally does not hear in modern MotoGP when a new track debuts. When you approach a weekend at a new circuit, it’s different and you have to be able to adapt as quickly as possible. “I ended the first half of the season really strongly, so it will be important to keep the momentum going”.
“The two straight stretches are very long which doesn’t help us, but we will have the opportunity to get to grips with them during the weekend.” said Rossi. “Even though we were very competitive in the tests, we will have to see what tyres Michelin will bring for the GP, because wear is very high here, you slide around a lot and the tyres will struggle to complete a race distance”.
New father Cal Crutchlow, who was present at the test, is unsure if he can replicate his results from Sachsenring: “I think it could be a hard weekend for us”. Recently we conducted a test here and learned quite a lot, so we think that we have a clear idea of how the tyres will work.
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“After a relaxing summer break I’m raring to get started again in Austria and build on the performances of the three previous races”, said Miller.
