Danny Kent – Brno Diary
Free Practice – Friday morning we had our free practice, as at every other race round everyone was just finding a good set-up with the bike for qualifying 1, practice was going OK but I was a little uncomfortable with the suspension so we made a change for QP1.
Qualifying 1 – I felt a lot more comfortable with the bike than I did in free practice which meant I could go a lot faster and also I knew the track more. I ended up 5th, which I was happy with because I just wanted to be on the first 2 rows to make good races.
Qualifying 2 – we made a little change from qualifying 1 which made me even more comfortable with the rear, I went faster in QP2 but so did all the other riders so I ended up 5th again, which I was still happy with. I knew from the times from qualifying that we were going to have 2 great races in a big group.
Race 1 – Race 1 was a good race for me, I made a good start and I felt comfortable. the first couple of laps the front 3 or 4 had a little gap from me and I felt I couldn’t catch but after a couple of laps I felt happy and comfortable and that I could go faster, which brought me up to the leading pack.
I looked behind once, half way through the race and I saw 5 people behind me and I was already in 5th position, so I knew if any one made a big mistake they could mess the whole race up because the top 10 riders were so close. On the last lap I made a move into the chicane before going up the hill and it sort of messed up my drive going up the hill and that let Florian Marino pull a little gap. Round the last 2 corners my mind was set on catching him and going over the line I missed out on 1st place by 0.018 and ended up finishing 2nd.
Race 2 – Race 2 wasn’t a good race for me, I made a bad start and I didn’t feel comfortable with the rear in the corners. There was a lot of juddering and sliding. The front 5 managed to get away from the start and I got caught in a battle with race 1 winner Florian and Nelson Major which meant we couldn’t catch the leaders. I wasn’t very happy with this race but there was nothing I could do and felt it was better to get the points than to crash.
I would like to thank Red Bull for running a great series and a big thank you to KTM for supplying all the bikes, a big thank you to Alpinestars for supplying all the race gear. I would like to thank Arai for sponsoring me all my helmets, Raul and Gustl for all their help and tuition, Alex and Carlos and all the mechanics for keeping all the bikes in great condition
A big thank you to Peter, Michaela and Niki, for doing such a great job and keeping all us youngster’s under control (it’s got to be hard) and finally a thanks to all the Red Bull hospitality staff for doing such a great job through out the year
i would like to wish the Rookies best of luck for the future
Many thanks Danny #52
