After the long winter break, finally WTR Team gets back on track to run the last championship of the glorious 125cc class, that will be replaced by the awaited Moto3 class in 2012.
From 2011 for the next three years, the Team known now as WTR-Ten10 Racing, symbolizes the union between WTR Team and the Indian Team Ten10 Racing, lining up two national champions on Aprilia RSW bikes – Francesco Mauriello from Italy and Sarath Kumar from India.
Today, at the Jerez Circuit for the pre-championship IRTA Test, Sarath Kumar, together with WTR-Ten10 Racing has set the MotoGP history by making his official debut as first Indian rider ever. Sarath, at his very first experience with the two-stroke 125cc bike moreover on wet conditions, has already stood out extremely well positively exceeding the team’s expectations. He will still need more experience and today’s rain did not help to run many laps. However he has shown, since the beginning, to be very fast in learning and putting into practice the precious advice of his technical head. We have to wait a little bit before he will be able to express his potential at his best, but the whole team is very confident of his capabilities.
Good start for Francesco Mauriello too, at his debut into the MotoGP as well; he is pretty experienced and young at the same time. He has great chances of growth and the team will work hard to provide him with maximum professional support for such purposes.
Despite the early morning start under a mild Sun, the next laps came with rain that virtually characterized the whole day. However, Francesco performed well on wet and in general with the bike, on his first testing day.
For the weekend are forecasted unstable weather conditions that will affect the performance, but this will not be on quite a negative side because it is useful experience for our two young and promising
riders.
Sarath Kumar #69:
“Today has been my debut day in the MotoGP. I am extremely happy, I feel good with the team and above all, with my technical head. This bike is totally different from what I am used to riding in India.
Even if I tried it today for the very first time, it is how I expected it to be. In the course of the day I have improved my timing, the riding style and after a few changes on the bike, I found the right feeling with it.
I need to get a lot of experience, but I hope to be able to do my best very soon.”
Francesco Mauriello #43:
“The testing day started well, except for some difficulties had due to the rain, overall it went smoothly. I feel very good with my new Team and my technical head that gives me great satisfactions. I had already raced on this track in the last CEV season, but I did not find myself in the best conditions whereas now I feel better. It is a big satisfaction to participate in the world championship and I hope to have a good season.”