In between the test and race I heard rumours that it was going to rain for race weekend. I was looking forward to it in a way but I thought it would be impossible for it to rain in the desert. Sure enough rain became an issue. It was raining on and off for the whole weekend. In the first qualifying session on Friday I improved my times again but unfortunately was out of Superpole. We made some more improvements to the suspension overnight but as luck would have it rained in morning qualifying so I could not improve my time in that session and I missed my first Superpole in a while. My mood wasn’t good anyway because we had been told the previous night that our 13-year-old malamute dog, Misha, passed away. It was like a member of the family passing away and it will be difficult for us going back to Australia after the test in Spain knowing Misha won’t be there.
The changes to the bike worked for the arvo, though, when I lopped off another second on race tyres so I was confident of finishing in the points for the race. 15th in the first race and DNF in the second isn’t something to be happy about but I just have to keep in mind how difficult this track was for our bike. I could catch and keep up with other riders through the first two sections of the track but, when it came to the final section which was flat out in third and fourth until you get onto the straight, we were just losing too much ground. There were three groups of guys at Qatar : those doing 2min 02secs, those doing 2min 03secs and those doing 2min 04ssecs or 2min 05secs. If you get away with the 2min 03secs you can stay with them but, from so far back on the grid, if you get stuck with the 2min 04secs it’s difficult to get away from them.
But I was really happy with the how my side of the garage worked. I really couldn’t ask for a better team than the one I have got. We all seemed to click together and it is making my job easier. Every time I went out I went quicker. They understand what I want, they are changing it how I want it to be changed and it is already making a difference on the track.
