Anthony West looks to season 2015
QMMF Racing Team rider Anthony West spent three days on track with the rest of the Moto2 and Moto3 field in the final official pre-season test at Jerez this week.
The track that never completely dried up at any point across the three days which put Anthony West behind the eight-ball as he tried to adapt the new WP suspension system to their Speed Up machine.
“The atmosphere for the two recent tests have been very different for me with two friends from home helping me out, Heath Hendrix who has been my friend since we were little kids and my life time riding coach Bernie Hatton.
“It’s made life away from home more fun and time on the track more productive in the tests.
“Having Heath in the pitbox helping me with riding gear and ensuring my diet remains clean along with other help touches was nice.
“Bernie has been out on track watching every move I make on the bike. But he has also been watching every other moto2 rider on track and that’s been helpful as far as knowing what the other riders are doing different on the track. Or what there bike can or can’t do as good as my bike.
“We need all the info we can get as I’m one of only 3 SpeedUp bikes on the grid.
“I was about three seconds slower than I am normally here at Jerez in wet conditions. Over the last three days, we tried everything to figure out why I didn’t get the right feeling from the bike and we finally discovered the problem. As it turns out, it can be fixed with a change to the inside of the suspension that will be done in the WP factory and that will give me more feeling in the wet.
“It was frustrating not to be able to go at my usual pace in the wet, but we know how to fix our issues if a wet race is coming up and I am happy with that.
“Due to the lack of dry track time, we haven’t been able to test all the other new parts that the team brought for this test, so we will fit them when practice starts for the Grand Prix of Qatar. If these parts work the way we expect, we will be quite strong.”
“Tomorrow all three of us will go head back to Madrid to train and mentally prepare for the first race which is coming up fast in Qatar. I hope to be in the top ten. This is my goal!
“Of course we have already planed to go go-kart racing on the weekend and the bets are on as Bernie and Heath think they can take me on.”
Briton Sam Lowes topped the test but with the significant weather interruptions over the three-day test the times are perhaps not as significant as they otherwise might have been and we will have to wait until the end of the month to see how the real pace unfolds at the Qatar season opener.
Moto2 Jerez Test Combined Times All Three Days
- Sam Lowes 1m44.129
- Jonas Folger 1m45.207
- Thomas Luthi 1m45.244
- Takaaki Nakagami 1m45.651
- Randy Krummenacher 1m45.709
- Azlan Shah 1m45.729
- Tito Rabat 1m45.868
- Dominique Aegerter 1m45.977
- Julian Simon 1m46.020
- Mika Kallio 1m46.188
- Franco Morbidelli 1m46.384
- Axel Pons 1m46.454
- Hafizh Syahrin 1m46.523
- Anthony West 1m46.573
- Xavier Simeon 1m46.790
- Johann Zarco 1m47.061
- Florian Alt 1m47.451
- Lorenzo Baldassarri 1m47.552
- Alex Marquez 1m47.805
- Jesko Raffin 1m48.107
- Louis Rossi 1m49.010
- Zaqhwan Zaidi 1m49.255
- Robin Mulhauser 1m49.404
- Marcel Schrotter 1m55.243
- Ricky Cardus 1m55.721
- Simone Corsi 2m00.822
- Sandro Cortese 2m02.511
Click Here for Full Coverage of the Moto2 and Moto3 Test at Jerez
