Red Bull Rookies France
Practice
Ireland's Red Bull Rookie and his team took to the track today for qualifying in France with heavy hearts. The loss of another megastar of Irish road racing Robert Dunlop has stunned everyone far and wide.
Josh rode today with a black armband as a small token and mark of respect.
After such a good weekend in Mondello last week, where Josh managed a terrific third overall on iNtentracing's 125 Honda, stepping back onto the KTM 125 was again a challenge.
Free practice was a struggle as Josh tried to learn the new track and cope with some handling problems. He asked the suspension technician to make changes to his suspension, but was 4.6 seconds off pole in this session, and had the slowest bike through the speed trap.
First and then final qualifying were back to back and although Josh improved from 3.4 seconds off to only 2.4 seconds off pole in the end surprisingly he still only managed 17th place.
The changes made helped the handling, but it will be difficult from the 5th row.
"I improved through the three sessions, but the poor first free practice set me back too far, and I had too much to do in qualifying to make up the time," stated Josh. "I hope to have a bit more speed tomorrow, as my bike was one of the slowest today, but I know where I need to do better also. Hopefully I can get a good start and try to get near the top ten."
Race day
It was such contrasting fortune over the last two weekends for Josh as the 'Rookies' race in France was far from a happy hunting ground compared to the fantastic run he had at Mondello Park last week.
Josh was off the pace in first practice, but after making a number of adjustments through qualifying was a lot happier with his race set up even though his bike was one of the slowest through the speed trap. Only 2.4 seconds off pole and in 17th place, Josh was just one second off the top ten and was confident he could run with them come the race.
A suggestion to have his bike checked in case there was something wrong with the speed was declined and unfortunately it seems that was to cost him.
Things looked good from the start as young Elliott made up quite a few places in the first few corners, but on the back straight, his bike seemed to lose power and all those he passed just came back past him. He struggled on trying to make up time in the corners but with his bike starting to jump out of gear he had to retire.
"I am very disappointed," said Josh. "I was confident of running in the top ten, but again my race has ended before it really began. I hope things change for the better soon."
Mugello, Italy in two weeks time is the next round and hopefully his fortune will change.