Press Release From Q.M.M.F 30th June
West and Rosell confident despite unlucky practice incident
After an encouraging third free practice session on Friday morning, QMMF Racing Team rider Anthony West decided to take Spanish team-mate Elena Rosell into his draft and to pull her along in qualifying in the afternoon. But all hopes of a smooth and successful session came to an abrupt stop when West unexpectedly ran into a very slow rider and crashed, only for Rosell, who was following very closely, to run into West and go down as well. Both riders walked away unscathed and their bikes didn’t suffer a lot of damage, either. But whereas Rosell, the only female rider in Grand Prix racing, managed to improve and to get her best lap time of the weekend after the incident, West couldn’t find back to the same good feeling for his Moriwaki bike and was unable to match his previous pace.
Anthony West – 28th in 1.40,333
“Things went quite well in the third free practice session this morning when I did a time of 1.39.7 and took 24th place. We had a good set-up and I felt I could go faster when it counted in qualifying in the afternoon. I had a good feeling at the beginning of the session, but then I had a very slow rider in front of me and ran into him. This incident ruined our whole session. We had to try and fix the bike, but when I went back out, the handlebars weren’t straight, so I had to come back. And even after that, the bike just didn’t feel the same any more and I couldn’t repeat my lap times, let alone go faster than in the morning!”
Elena Rosell – 33rd in 1.42,273
“Our idea for this afternoon was to ride together for a while so Anthony would pull me along. I waited for him, but when he started to push, he collided with another rider and I literally ran over him. I crashed and had to return to the garage because the handlebars were bent. It took a while to fix the bike, then I went out again and I managed to put a lap together that was faster than this morning and my best lap of the weekend so far. There were still problems with the bike moving too much, so I came back for another long pit stop. I went out with four minutes to go in the session and there was simply no time left for another improvement, also because there was a lot of tension and I was a bit nervous. Now I hope for good weather tomorrow – I want to do the same that I did in Silverstone when I put up a fight with the riders that were close to me!”
