Loris Baz says his first impressions of the new Ten Kate Racing-prepared Yamaha are positive as he brushed off the effect of the wet weather that hampered his R1 debut.
The Frenchman will return to racing in the World Superbike Championship for round six of the series in Jerez as part of the revised Ten Kate Racing outfit, which has ended its long association with Honda to become a Yamaha customer.
Former Kawasaki factory rider Baz, who returned to WorldSBK from MotoGP in 2018 as part of the Althea BMW team, turned his first laps on the R1 during testing at Misano alongside the factory Crescent Racing outfit and the satellite GRT team.
Though rain limited Baz – who hasn’t ridden a WorldSBK in seven months - from pushing harder, he insists the day was still all about getting comfortable with his new ‘date’.
“I am really happy,” he said. “Of course I would have liked to have had full dry run at the end, but looking back it was not so bad starting with these conditions because we had so many things to do on the bike at the beginning like choosing the foot rest, the good fairing… all the small details. So I took it easy at the beginning and just tried to find the good feeling.
"It is like going out with a girlfriend for the first time, you have to learn each other. I enjoyed riding the R1 for the first time and in the end, we were lucky to do around 40 laps in the dry.
“We are improving with every lap because for seven months I haven’t ridden a bike, so I have to get back the feeling and know how to ride because I felt everything was coming fast at the beginning. I cross fingers we have a dry day on day two.”
I’m a happy boy tonight !
Thanks @Tenkatemotoren and @yamaharacingcom pic.twitter.com/u4dVf6sdiR— Loris baz (@lorisbaz) May 29, 2019
