Kallio: ‘We had an almost perfect bike’

Jumping from 13th place on the Sunday morning free practice timesheet with a best lap of 1'41.600 to a surprise sixth place in the afternoon BMW M Award session with a vastly improved 1’40.149 effort, Mika Kallio was in a confident mood at the end of the Official MotoGP test at Jerez.

The Finnish MotoGP rookie felt he could have gone even faster had it not been for some difficulties in the final section of the circuit, but he acknowledged the work of his Pramac Racing staff as he stated that they had been close to perfection in setting up his Desmosedici GP9.

The 250cc graduate commented on Sunday evening, “With the data we gathered on Saturday and on Sunday morning I assessed the situation with the track and the bike, alongside my Technical Director, Fabiano Sterlacchini. We put together all the positive things we found and we had an almost perfect bike. I was still losing too much time in the last sector, otherwise we could have finished in an even better position. We are doing a great job and I’m sure we can keep up that good work in the first race in Qatar.”

Kallio was one of the nine MotoGP riders who re-emerged after the BMW M Award session, in the third and final free practice, putting in 17 laps of wet riding as he rounded off the preparations for his debut campaign in the premier class. He also concluded that session sixth on an abridged timesheet, again lapping faster than fellow debutants Niccolò Canepa and Yuki Takahashi.