Difficult race for Hector Barbera at Phillip Island

After being the fastest Open Class rider in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, Hector Barbera was confident for the 27-lap-race today at Phillip Island.

The Avintia Racing rider confirmed his good pace in the warm up session this morning where he scored eleventh place ahead of some factory bikes. But in the race, he was not able to match his pace. He had a poor start, but finally got up to 16th place after an intense battle in which he beat Yonny Hernandez and Loris Baz.

The MotoGP World Championship heads to Malaysia now, a track where Barbera and Di Meglio did many laps during the winter tests and where Ducati is fast.

HECTOR BARBERA #8 / 16th (P2 Open) @HectorBarbera
We did not ride at this time and with this temperature during all the weekend and during the race the bike felt completely different. In the warm up and yesterday during FP4 I lapped consistently in mid 1’30, but my fastest lap in the race was 1’31.0. We need to find out what happened so we can try to avoid it in the future. My start was not great, but I was confident about recovering due to my good pace. I’m disappointed because we threw the race in the rubbish bin. When you give the maximum and enjoy riding, the bike is fine, but today it did not happen. Now we fly to Malaysia, a track that I like and where we were fast in winter. We have to leave this race behind and think about next weekend, so we can arrive motivated and get a good result at Sepang.

Source: Avintia Racing