MotoGP: Kallio: "The gap to the front was a big surprise for us"

Mika Kallio and the KTM Factory Racing team were left surprised at their lack of pace as the RC16 made its MotoGP debut at Valencia today.

The Finn ended the day with a fastest lap of 1’33.574, some 3.1 seconds off quickest man Jorge Lorenzo. More worrying for the Austrian factory was that Kallio was unable to get close to the times he set in testing at the Ricardo Tormo circuit just over a month ago.

“We were not showing our best today,” Kallio said. “The gap to the front was too big and that was a big surprise for us. We thought we could be closer to the fastest guys and that’s why we are not happy with today. There are a lot of things we need to improve. 

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“The main problem was we couldn’t work with the rear tyre, there was no rear grip at all, even if we changed the settings. I tried both bikes, the soft and harder rear tyres but I always found the same problems. I’m not completely satisfied but we need to think about the positives 

“We were here testing a month ago and we were faster so that’s why we were expecting something more. It could be temperature but we are not too far from the temperature it was then, so I think there is something else at the moment.”

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