A new challenge
The third round of the FIM Junior GP World Championship is taking place almost at home. Indeed, it is on the circuit of Barcelona that the young speed enthusiasts will meet – in full this time. The season looks promising for the First Bike Academy. Indeed, Alvaro Fuertes, who crashed during a race in Portugal, is again fit to ride.
The beginning of the tests
Thursday’s free practice allow Alvaro to test his convalescent collarbone while Blai and Guillem review the track in preparation for the tests. However, this was a new circuit for Elie, thus, he spent the day learning about it. The circuit, technical and fast, will test the young pilots as well as his opponents.
Thursday goes by smoothly, and the whole team of the motorcycle school of the south of France is looking forward to the next day. Indeed, our young pilots as well as our qualified instructors are eager to know their ranking. After months of training, it is difficult to wait before knowing where they stand against the tough competition.
“I had a good day for the first tests of the weekend. There are still some small adjustments to be made. A good time in the third session”
Guillem Planques
Time for the official tests
The official tests begin at 9:00 am on Friday with the group A – including Guillem and Alvaro. Planques had a very beautiful session in 3rd position and offers us a very promising time. The team decided not to start with him for the afternoon because of two main reasons. The goal is indeed to save the mechanics in order to guarantee the performances of their bikes, but also to concentrate on the qualifications. Alvaro, as for him, progresses little by little, with a 16th place in the morning, and a 10th place in the afternoon.
As for the group B, Blai signs the 14th position while Elie, struggled a bit more and crosses the finish line in 20th position. Little improvement for our two drivers during the afternoon, however: it will be necessary to do better in qualification in order to have the best possible position on the starting grid.
Sunny qualifications
It is under the radiant sun of this Saturday of June that the qualifications begin. In group A, Alvaro barely qualified. Indeed, only the first fourteen of each group are qualified, and our young thrill-seeker finds himself 14th in the ranking. However, this remains an admirable performance from our young prodigy, still recovering from his collarbone. His teammate, Guillem, is once again the only French driver qualified: he is 9th in the two cumulated sessions. Thus, he will start 18th on the starting grid. The young driver will have to excel in his start if he wants to join the top 10 again and beat his rivals.
Qualifying remains an area that we need to improve.
In Group B, Blai put his talent in good use and had a very good 2nd session. He managed to qualify directly in 13th position. As for Elie, he did a very good time in the 1st session and took the 17th place. However, this was not enough to qualify, so he started from the 7th place for the “Last Chance” race (Draft race where the first two will participate in the Sunday race). After a good start, Elie stabilized his position but was unfortunately heckled, which forced him to leave the track. Last of the group, he forces to go back up, but falls in one of the fast turns of the circuit – without physical damage fortunately. We will remember his good qualifying time.
The long awaited race
Then came the big day: the final race on Sunday. Guillem, far from the grid (18th) must make an excellent start in order to move up the positions. We know that Guillem is a Sunday driver, what he likes is the race. In order to prepare himself as well as possible, our young student makes an excellent warm up with a 4th place, but especially a time less than 6 tenths of the track record.
The start of the race is given at 01:00 pm under an overwhelming heat and with 54 degrees ‘s track temperature. Guillem took a good start and overtook his opponents one by one. He managed to join the leading group and moved between 9th and 5th place throughout the race, always in the wheel of the leader. Unfortunately, he crashed in the penultimate part of the race, missing a great opportunity to climb on the podium.
However, he shows us once again his potential, although there is still some progress to be made in terms of qualifying and the end of the race. Fortunately, at fourteen years old, our young driver still has time to learn.
On their side, Blai and Alvaro finished respectively at the 19th and 22nd place.
Let’s meet again in July
Thus, it is without points that we leave this Catalan weekend. We remember that three of our pilots qualified, and that Guillem fought hard for a nice podium on almost all the races.
We would like to thank our many supporters who came to encourage us this weekend, as well as our faithful partners without whom nothing would be possible.
See you now in Jerez on the weekend of July 3rd!
Photo credits : Anthony Ahunon
