The fifth day of preseason testing didn’t see much action at the Losail International Circuit today, as sand and dust combined with wind delivered some difficult track conditions, which prevented the Tech3 KTM Factory Racing duo and the rest of the MotoGP World Championship field to further work on their race setups.

Yet, Danilo Petrucci was one of the few riders registering a lap time while trying out the conditions. With the asphalt being far from ideal, he returned to the Tech3 KTM Factory Racing garage after just two flying laps, but went out again with more than one hour on the clock after the track was cleaned a bit. He eventually concluded the day on top of the time sheets.

At the same time, Iker Lecuona opted to wait for the circumstances to improve, but didn’t see a good chance to make use of the ultimate day ahead of the first race weekend in 2021, which kicks off in exactly two weeks’ time.

Danilo Petrucci

Position: 1^st

Time: 1:58.157

Laps: 9

“I’m pleased with the progress throughout our four days here at the Losail International Circuit. Unfortunately, we couldn’t use this final day to improve further. Anyway, we have some clear ideas about what we need. I’m really looking forward to the first race.”

“I’m also very happy about the work with the team and the environment. Of course, we still need to improve, because our goal is to fight at the top. For the race weekend, we will start from zero, so I’m optimistic to begin this new adventure.”

Iker Lecuona

Position: -

Time: -

Laps: -

“Finally, it was very difficult to ride on this last day due to the conditions of the track and the weather, so together with my team I decided not to ride in order to don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“Overall, I learned a lot during these four days of testing. I improved a lot, although my lap time is not the best yet. Today I wanted to try to do a long run and a time attack, which was unfortunately impossible due to the weather. For sure, there’s a lot of work left for us. During the Grand Prix weekend, we need to check several things, but I feel that we can improve already on Friday in order to be closer to the top 10 during the first race.”

Hervé Poncharal

Team Manager

“The Tech3 KTM Factory Racing team is done with the preseason tests. It’s been a busy schedule here in Doha and sure it was very interesting to finally do some laps on our MotoGP bike for both our riders, maybe even more for Danilo, who was riding KTM RC16 for first time, but also for Iker after he has been out of action for quite long.”

“We made progress on each single day with both riders, but clearly, there is still some work to do, some steps to make and we definitely have to improve. Of course, we already have some ideas of how to improve, but I think everybody on the grid has that. So, we will see. Right now, we are a bit more than 1.5 seconds to the fastest riders, which is quite a big gap.”

“Hopefully in terms of race pace we will see less than that gap, but it’s quite clear, that it will be not enough to fight for the top 5. The good thing I can say is that we are not far from our KTM colleagues. This is showing that Danilo has understood the KTM already quite well and that Iker made progress too. Sure, it’s not enough having the four KTMs close to each other, but we face more or less all same issues and we will be stronger when the four of our riders are to find solutions.”

“We still have some things to test, there is a great work atmosphere inside the KTM squad, which is the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing team and Tech3 KTM Factory Racing team. To have that method of working can only help us.”

“Now it’s time to fly back home for a week. There will be a lot of brainstorming and meetings at the KTM headquarters and I fully trust them to find solutions to be closer to the top guys by the week after next week. The main target of this test was to get the riders back to the MotoGP feeling. We did some good work with Michelin and passed all the info to KTM, so altogether we did our mission, but of course we are in a very positive frame of mind and fully motivated.”

“The preseason test is the preseason test, one flying lap is one fast lap, but hopefully the race weekend can be kind of a different story. If we could be in the top 8 after round one, we can be pretty happy. We have to work on this. Danilo and Iker are bringing an incredible positive atmosphere to the garage. There’s a great feeling inside, everybody is happy to be there, to be working together and this is how you do a great season.”

“We have 19 races, very different circuits and I think, some of them will suit our bike better. So, let’s go back home, have a rest, think about what can be done, come back with a fresh mind and sure Friday in two weeks we will restart from scratch. Hopefully the whole picture will be a bit different and we will be closer, but I’m pretty sure about that.”

“A huge thank you to the organizers and Dorna for taking care so well of the whole paddock. I would like to express my gratitude to everybody involved in the vaccine opportunity, because it is definitely going to make everybody’s life a lot easier. Our job is to move and travel from one country to another and this I think this vaccine is mission one. What Carmelo Ezpeleta and the whole team together with the Qatari authorities have done, is amazing. I’d like to thank everyone for that great chance!”