Baz still “not riding naturally, foot more painful at Misano”

After the Mandalika round, where Baz suffered the injury after having his leg run into at high speed by Alex Lowes, the French rider returned to WorldSBK action at Assen before competing in the most recent Catalunya round, which was again dominated by world champion Alvaro Bautista.

While his injury has certainly played a factor in him only scoring nine points so far this season, Baz has also been aboard an M 1000 RR that’s lacking performance compared to the top manufacturers, which are once again Ducati and Yamaha.

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Michael Van Der Mark, Scott Redding and Garrett Gerloff have all struggled to break into the top ten consistently, which shows that Baz is not the only rider to have struggled. 

Baz, who like Redding, Gerloff and stand-in for Van Der Mark, Tom Sykes, was back in action at the recent two-day Misano test.

15th fastest on the final day, Baz said he’s still struggling for fitness after suffering with foot pain.

"The focus at this test was to be back a bit more natural on the bike, especially with my leg," said Baz. "The couple of races that I have done since I came back, I was of course not riding naturally. 

"It is still not perfect, and the foot was more painful at Misano than it was at Barcelona due to all the changes of direction so we have not done too many laps but focused on trying to get back a feeling with the front and a better turning of the bike again. 

"There we were struggling more this season compared to last year. I think that we made a good step in that direction. 

"We have also been a bit lucky with the weather as two days of rain had been predicted and we still had good laps on the dry. 

"I did most of the test with the SC0, my best lap time was with really old tyres. So the test was pretty okay. 

"Now I am looking forward to three more weeks of recovery for my leg because it is still locking me in the right–hand corners and changes of direction."