Toseland regaining confidence after third night in Qatar
Added on Friday, March 6th, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor
Toseland regaining confidence after third night in Qatar
James Toseland believes that his confidence is returning despite a torrid time in pre-season testing at Sepang and Losail.
Toseland, the only British representative in the MotoGP championship, is still suffering from the after effects of a high-speed crash in Sepang earlier this year with a series of disappointing times in testing leaving him at the lower end of the time charts.
After a relatively promising 6th place in the opening session at Jerez back in November, the Yorkshireman has found himself propping up the rest of the field, posting the slowest time of the regular riders in Sepang and finishing only above Marco Melandri in the combined times in Qatar this week.
Toseland did however manage to shave around 1.5secs from his time on the final day of the test in Losail and that was enough to lift the 28-year-olds move ahead of Jerez in two weeks time.
“It has not been an easy test but on the last night I felt like we were finding a good direction and I was certainly feeling a lot more comfortable on the bike,” he said. “The crash in Sepang hit my confidence and it took me a while to find my rhythm, but I feel I can go much faster now.
“There is still plenty of work to do but I was 1.5s faster on the last night, and I just need time on the bike. I had a bit of an issue with the feeling from soft front tyre, which I had to run later on during the evening as the track temperature got cooler. I was comfortable with the hard front tyre but it was too hard for the colder temperatures.
“I can still improve and I learned about the bike and the tyres at this test, and at the end I’m only just over a second behind Colin and he has been consistently fast.”
