Challenging Qualifying For The DRIVE M7 SIC Racing Team

Barcelona - Catalunya, Spain – Saturday 13th June

Circuit: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya
Circuit Length: 4.7 km

Bike #63 – Zulfahmi Khairuddin
Qualifying: P33; 1’53.203 (DRY) – 15 laps

Bike #84 – Jakub Kornfeil
Qualifying: P26; 1’52.459 (DRY) – 15 laps

Day two in Barcelona saw a difficult qualifying practice for the DRIVE M7 SIC Racing Team duo, who despite setting their fastest times of the weekend, concluded the day in 26th and 33rd place.

Pushing hard to get the best possible result, Jakub Kornfeil and Zulfahmi Khairuddin batted their way around the Catalan circuit, but still struggling with the set-up of their KTM machines, were unable to break into the top twenty.

The DRIVE M7 SIC Racing Team riders face a difficult task at hand as they start tomorrow’s Grand Prix from rows nine and eleven, but remain positive that they can find the improvements needed to be competitive.

Johan Stigefelt – Team Manager

“We have been struggling all weekend with both riders and this is not what we were expecting. Despite our qualifying results today we are not giving up and we will keep working hard to improve for tomorrow’s race. I believe we still have a lot more potential to show here in Barcelona. It’s very disappointing but we have to stay focussed and do all that we can to improve.
For Fahmi the qualifying result is again not good but also Jakub has unfortunately taken a big step backwards from where we were in Mugello. With Jakub we thought we had a good base from the last four or five races which has been very strong, but obviously here we have been lacking something, so now we need to analyse everything and try to find what is wrong. We have to keep working hard and do our best to help the riders. We still have a warm up in the morning where I hope that we can make improvements. The race will be very tough but there are still a couple of things that we can change, so let’s see tomorrow.”

#63 Zulfahmi Khairuddin

“I’m very disappointed with my result today. I was feeling more confident after FP3 so I was hopeful that I could do well in qualifying, but we made some changes to the front of the bike for QP and unfortunately they didn’t work. Towards the end of the session we were able to make some improvements, so for the last run I thought I would be able to pick up my pace, but I couldn’t get a clean lap. As soon as I pushed there would be somebody waiting in the track, so this was very frustrating. Today has been a tough day, so now we must go away and study everything and see what we can do. The race will be difficult starting so far back but anything can happen. I’m confident that we can find some more from the bike for warm up and in the race I promise that I will push very hard to prove this is not my position and not where we belong.”

#84 Jakub Kornfeil

“Where we have qualified today is not a normal position for us; I’m very unhappy about the bike. One weekend we are fighting at the top and the next we are so far down, so for sure there is something wrong. We tried so many things today and nothing helped. I’m trying to do the best that I can but the bike is very difficult to ride. I’m losing so much corner speed; I’m so slow in corners three and seven and this is where I am losing most of my time. At this moment we are unsure of exactly what the problem is. We are 26th and for sure it will be a tough race but right now we have to find out why we are struggling so much. Normally when we have made a change in the past we can expect the bike to be better, but here it just gets worse. Now we will open the bike completely and check every single part. We are all disappointed with today and I’m sorry for the team. They are working very hard to improve the set-up, so I hope that we can find the solution this evening. Tomorrow we must just push to be there and if I can get a better feeling on the bike, I will do my best to bring some points home.”

-SIC Racing Team facebook.

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