motogp.com

Jerez 2010 - Test - Moto2 - Interview - Corti

Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Italian rider Claudio Corti will make his World Championship debut in Qatar in the opening Moto2 race, but he has already served notice of his potential with his pre-season displays.

It may have come as something of a surprise for some to see the name of Claudio Corti at the top of the Moto2 timesheet at the end of the Jerez Test on Monday, but the Italian of the Forward Racing team has been consistently in and around the top times throughout the pre-season.

Corti will make his World Championship debut in the inaugural race of the new Moto2 category in Qatar on April 11th, and his steady progression throughout the three official Tests in March culminated in the best time of the third and final one at Jerez. A hot lap of 1’44.044 was three-hundredths of a second faster than second quickest Toni Elías, and has announced Corti’s potential in impressive style.

“We are ahead and now people will expect a lot of me – I have almost placed myself in a trap!” said the 22 year-old. “We will go to Qatar with the intention of doing well even though we don’t know the track entirely. Now we leave Jerez satisfied with the lap times as well as the race pace.”

The emergence of Corti through the Tests and his signing off from pre-season with the best time at Jerez serves to underline his capability with 4-stroke machinery. He was runner-up in last year’s Superstock 1000, and has transferred his skills across to the Suter MMX prototype he will compete on in Moto2.

Following his performance at Jerez, the Italian now feels ready to tackle the new intermediate category of the World Championship. He said: “It was good for sure, no not good – great! We tried many things. We lost a lot of time on the first day because we had many problems with the bike, but on Sunday and Monday we’ve tried many things for the race in Qatar and we had a good long run also. We are ready.”

The Forward Racing team, co-ordinated in 2010 by Marco Melandri’s former Team Manager in MotoGP from last year Andrea Dosoli, is a set-up in which Corti believes he can do well in his first season.

“The objective is to always be in the top ten, especially in the unknown circuits,” added Corti. “In addition, the first race will be at night and this is new for me. It has gone well now; we have performed well and done fast laps, but having to race for 27 laps is another matter. We’re about to give it a go, but of course it is more difficult!”