Disappointment for Barbera at home race

Tremendous expectation surrounded the MotoGP race at Jerez on Sunday afternoon, and there were temperatures to match. The premier class was following on from two great lower cylinder category races, and didn’t disappoint in its role as the main attraction. The early going in the Spanish Grand Prix had an early leader in Dani Pedrosa, but the twist in the tale came with an astonishing performance from Jorge Lorenzo. The eventual racewinner caught up with his career-long rival on the final lap in a thrilling fight, and passed him right at the end to take victory in the second race of 2010 –making it three Spanish racewinners on the day.

Héctor Barberá was disappointed as he stepped off his Ducati on Sunday afternoon, having not experienced the race that he would have liked. In his second MotoGP round the Spaniard wasn’t able to push hard on the early laps, and he suffered as a result of not being able to follow other riders. After lap five the Páginas Amarillas Aspar man finally found his pace, but it was too late and he had to settle for thirteenth place at his home GP. He now looks forward to a day of testing in order to put things right and prepare for round three.

13th Héctor Barberá: “That was a rather difficult race for me. You have to go very fast in the opening couple of laps and what happened to me in Qatar occurred again today. I didn’t feel at ease and didn’t want to push in case I fell. My main goal is to finish races in order to continue learning. After the warmup we made a small change to the front suspension that we though would help us in the heat, but we made a mistake. The bike didn’t have the necessary stability and I wasn’t comfortable with it, so I had to be very alert on the opening laps. I also had a lot of problems opening the throttle, especially at the start of the straights and on the fast corners. After the fifth lap I was able to knuckle down and find a consistent pace. I finished thirteenth, which isn’t a great result, so I’ll have to fight to do better. I’m not happy with it and I hoped for more from this race. The good thing is that tomorrow we will stay to test, and I want to try out a lot of things in order to solve the problems that we experienced today.”