Avintia Blusens pair looking for improvements after Silverstone

The Silverstone round of the MotoGP™ championship at the Hertz British Grand Prix was once again a story of two sides for the Avintia Blusens team.

Its Columbian rider Yonny Hernandez was involved in a tussle to the line with Paul Bird Motorsports, and only marginally missed out on 14th place, ultimately crossing the line in 15th to take home a point. For Spanish rider Iván Silva the race was an affair to forget as he struggled immensely with rear wheel grip. The situation wasn’t helped by him testing a new front fork in practice, ultimately not used in the race, and not having sufficient time to work on race set-up.

The team remains optimistic, yet at the same time realistic. The Kawasaki-powered BQR-FTR bike is an ambitious project, and the team has already made tremendous strides since their first run-out in pre-season testing. Add to this Silva’s task of evaluating the Spanish-built, part-carbon Inmotec chassis since the Jerez round, and the team has certainly given themselves enough to keep busy. And whilst the four ART machines are seen as the strongest CRTs on the grid at the moment, both riders and the team will take heart from Hernandez’s battle with Ellison’s ART in Silverstone, and will undoubtedly take this thought forward into the next round at Assen in the search of further improvements.

Yonny Hernandez

"We made a bad start on Sunday and then I had a hard time reaching the CRT group. I had a very nice fight with Ellison and the last lap was frantic. We switched places several times and it was exciting. In the end I could score again, but for the next race I want to be among the top three CRT."

Ivan Silva

"We are in a position we do not want, but I have to thank the team because we are continually trying things that allow us to improve a little bit. On race weekend we were testing a different fork but in the morning warm-up we returned to the configuration of Montmeló and improved a bit. Then in the race, we didn’t have much grip with the rear wheel and it was complicated. Again I thank the team for not getting tired of working, and I hope that from Assen we can finish in a higher position."