Monster Yamaha Tech3 Duo is Keen to Kick Off European Season in Spain

“We’re back to Europe with the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez, a track, that I think everybody likes and I enjoy it, too. I’ve got some great memories from last year and I want an even better souvenir this year. I feel the bike well and after Texas I needed some time to get along with the jetlag, which was quite difficult this time. It took me two days to have the full energy during the day back, but now I feel ready enough and I’m just happy to be back on my bike. I’ll try to push the Yamaha in the right way to fight for the victory, if we are able to do so. Let’s trust in the victory and the podium and wait and see what happens.”

“I’m looking forward to the next race in Jerez de la Frontera. My physical condition is getting better and better and I think I meanwhile learned what I need for the big bike. After the disappointment in Texas, I’m feeling good again and I was training a lot with the bicycle, dirt bike and trial, so I’m more than ready to get it started again. I will try to avoid to repeat the mistake I did in the Americas GP Warm Up and I hope I can end up in the points scoring positions again.”

“We had a few days at the office on the way back from the USA, that helped everybody to recover and to get ready to organize the logistics for the European rounds, who are quite different to the overseas Grand Prix’. That kept all of us busy, but now we already have half of the team on the road driving to beautiful Andalusia. Jerez is always a very special place because of the location, which is truly amazing, because of the fans that are passionate and really hot and because of the racing, which is always incredibly close and exciting there. We at Monster Yamaha Tech3 arrive in Jerez with an interesting position being the joint independent team leader with Johann and Cal Crutchlow equal on points and leading the rookie classification with Hafizh. We have great memories of how Johann and the Yamaha YZR-M1 are working in Jerez from last year, where he had an incredible fight, leading the race for some laps, fighting with Marc Marquez and only giving up the podium to Jorge Lorenzo. Let’s hope we can repeat this kind of performance this year. Johann is eager to continue the incredible start of year he is having. On Hafizh’ side, I would say the same. He was really disappointed, that he was not able to score in Texas, but we could see that in Qualifying and before the crash he was very fast and he will want to be fast like this again and fighting with his fellow rookies. Spain is a special country for him, because this is his base in Europe. He has a lot of fans there and his nickname is ‘El Pescao’, therefore this round is one of his second home GP’s. Everybody at Monster Yamaha Tech3 can’t wait to be on the track to meet all of our friends we haven’t seen since Valencia 2017, because some of the staff do not follow the overseas. It will be the first GP where we can see everybody working in MotoGP and we can’t wait to meet them there.”