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RED BULL KTM 250 MAKES GP DEBUT AT DONINGTON Australian rider Anthony West gave the Red Bull KTM 250 its official track debut in today’s opening qualifying session for the British Grand at Donington Park. And it was an impressive performance with West finishing fifteenth on the provisional grid and less than two seconds off pole position. West and the KTM team came to Donington after just two days of shakedown trials at the Vallelunga circuit in Italy. Despite some minor teething problems which stopped one West’s bikes, the new KTM 250 showed great potential. Much of today’s two hours of practice and qualifying was taken up with establishing base settings for engine, suspension and gearbox for the all-new KTM 250. The delayed debut of the new bike has also left West short of track time and the 23 year old Australian admits he needs more time to be return to reach his best form. In the afternoon qualifying session West sliced 1.1 seconds off his morning free practice time despite. There will be further two hours of practice and qualifying tomorrow on advance of Sunday’s race. Spanish rider Jorge Lorenzo claimed provisional pole position in today’s first qualifying session. Anthony West #14 - Fifteenth - 1’34.402 “It’s a great feeling to finally be on the KTM at a grand prix, it’s been a long wait. I’m feeling more confident each time I go out and getting faster and faster, which is pleasing, considering we still have a lot of set-up work to do. Everything is new and we had to start from zero with gearbox and engine settings. And I still need more track time, I’m making a few mistakes on the bike, turning in too early and things like that -- I haven’t done a lot of racing this year. But the KTM has a nice feeling especially on corner entry, it reminds me a little fo the Honda 250 I used to ride.” Harald Bartol - Technical and Managing Director “I think that our first official day at a grand prix we can be happy with the performance of the new KTM 250. We had some small problems that you typically get with a new bike. Things like a petrol tap problem but hopefully we can fix some of the small things that cost us time today. Anthony has done a good job considering he has missed a lot of track time this season compared to the other riders.”
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