Andrea Iannone turned his frst real laps in anger for the Suzuki Ecstar team at the Losial International Circuit in Qatar last night when he took part in the opening 45 minute free practice session of the 2017 season opening Moto GP event.
Uunder the floodlights with a new aerodynamic fairing on his GSX-RRs, the Italian rider further proved the machine’s evolution; and something the team will further-evaluate in the coming days.
Iannone began his work from the same place he left-off less than two weeks ago, with the new set-up at the final test.
This allowed him to get back the feeling of improvement he had, but he wasn’t able to make an effective finish that would have allowed him to improve his lap-time and he was forced to settle for 13th place.
His focus now remains on finding a good overall feel with the bike that will allow him to better fulfil his potential before the race, however he is feeling as if he is unable to take any advantages from the positive changes just yet.
“At the moment we are struggling and we will need to stay focused and work hard. I really hope we can make some steps forward," he said. "I don’t expect a big leap from one session to another, but for sure we have to improve, and at the moment we haven’t found the right direction. There are many positive points about the bike and some others which are negative, but this happens to any bike."
"So, our problem now is that I cannot really take advantage of the positives. We used the aerodynamic fairing to get some more information, as we couldn’t use it intensively during the test. And, the more data we can collect, the better it is. We still don’t know if we will use it for the race. For the moment, we have to continue working on it and we will decide during the weekend.”
