Salom takes good momentum from Jerez to Portugal despite technical problems

Just a few days after Luis Salom’s excellent second place in the Spanish GP at Jerez, RW Racing GP had to get back to business. At the Portugese coast this time, at the circuit of Estoril. Salom could keep his momentum from Jerez going and set the third fastest time of the grid in FP2.

It did take him some time to find his form back. With 20 minutes remaining Salom set his first fast lap time of 1.50.270: good enough for the provisional second place on the grid. Brad Binder pushed his Kalex-KTM to 16th (1.51.367).

But that wasn’t it. Salom got into a exciting fight with Sandro Cortese and Miguel Oliveira for the top positions of the grid. In the final seconds Oliveira was just a little bit faster then Cortese and Salom.

The first practice on Friday morning was a lot more complicated. The track was wet after heavy rain stroke Estoril during the night. Binder found his name back in 14th position (1.59.097), but Salom didn’t get any faster than 1.59.976 that only brought him to 21st.

Luis Salom: “We had some technical problems in the morning session. Therefore we couldn’t use all the track time we had. But for the afternoon we had the bike fixed and it worked well. I could improve almost each lap. I have a good feeling with the bike.”

Team manager Johan Stigefelt: “A good start of the weekend is important for the confidence of the rider. We lost some time today, but we worked hard to get everything in the right direction and now it looks good.”

Source: RW Racing GP