Pramac pair ready to correct Qatar disappointment

Mika Kallio and Aleix Espargaró will head to Japan with the intention of securing their first points of the 2010 World Championship, following crashes in round one at Losail.

Finnish rider Kallio survived two separate incidents of touching with other riders to keep his focus, before he lost the front end of his Ducati in only the third lap to bring his race to a premature end.

Mika Kallio

“My start was not too bad and I was able to overtake a couple of riders in the first corner. But then when I was in the second corner Spies broke a little bit late and he touched me and I went a little bit wide and lost many positions. Then when we went into the third corner Barberá broke quite late and he touched me, and I went into the gravel and was last when we finished the first lap.”

“I tried to push but then in the third lap I lost the front and crashed, and of course that was my mistake. I don’t know why that happened, because my feeling with the bike was not too bad.”

Espargaró made it to the seventh lap before he slid in the final turn, and the 20 year-old tried to get his bike back on track to continue. However, he was unable to carry on and also returned to the Pit Lane early.

Aleix Espargaro

“It was a great race at the beginning, the start was good and I was fighting with other riders and having fun,” he said. “But then I had a lot of problems with the front tyre and it was closing when I was braking hard, like in practice. We had made a change for the warm-up and it was a little bit better, but it still wasn’t okay, and in the race I tried to push as I approached Colin Edwards and then I crashed.”

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