MotoGP: Baz disappointed with 11th in Argentina

Loris Baz has come away from the second race of the 2017 MotoGP season disappointed by 11^th place, after evasive action on the opening lap of the Argentine Grand prix cost him what he believes was the chance of a solid top eight finish.

The Frenchman was forced to sit up his Reale Avintia Ducati on the opening lap when Jorge Lorenzo made contact with Andrea Iannone in front of him, meaning that he lost his link to the group he believes he could have challenged with.

“I’m disappointed because I think that we missed a great opportunity today. I’ve lost all chances when Jorge crashed in front of me and I was forced to run off the track to avoid running over him. I lost too much time and although I gave my best to recover when I caught Miller and Abraham, my front tyre was destroyed, so I couldn’t attack.

“It is a shame because today I had the pace to be with Folger and Petrucci. But overall the weekend has been quite positive, my team did a superb job and we improved every time I went out. I hope to be lucky in Austin.”

However, teammate Hector Barbera had a more difficult on the newer of the team’s two bikes, admitting that he wasn’t able to get a handle on setup all weekend after he came home in 13^th.

“It was a really difficult weekend for me, and I was not able to tame ‘the beast’. We tried all possible settings on the bike; I didn’t get out on the track with the same configuration twice over the whole weekend and now it’s clear that we can’t adapt this bike to my riding style. So it is me who has to adapt to the bike.

“When I raced with this bike last season, it was already hard for me to get the right feeling and during the winter test I had the same issues again. The first race at Qatar was not a reference as I was recovering from my collarbone injury, but still, the feeling was bad. Here I was back to full fitness and the feeling was the same. In 25 laps I never did a single corner as I would like to. Riding like this is really difficult, because I’m fighting with the bike all the time.”