New Zealand motorcycle racer Cormac Buchanan is rapt that race week is already here again.
The Southland teenager endured a mixed weekend in the Moto3 World Championship at Czechia’s iconic Autodrom Brno circuit, culminating in P18 during Sunday’s race.
“The good thing about back-to-back race weekends is there’s no time to dwell on what might have been. You’ve just got to process it and move on because it’s a new race week just hours later,” Buchanan said.
“When things don’t quite go to plan, straight away we have another chance to improve, and that’s where the focus is. We learned a lot this weekend, and we’ll use that to our advantage.”
Buchanan was effectively out of contention after an early scare in the opening stages of the race caused him to run wide and lose contact with the leading group.
“From that moment on, it was all about fighting back. Unfortunately, the gap proved insurmountable for the group fighting for P7. I was able to match their pace and chip away at it, but it’s hard to recover the time when there’s not much separating the lap times given how incredibly competitive this Moto3 class is,” he said.
“Still, we kept pushing until the chequered flag, and there are some positives to take away. Giving up isn’t in my DNA. Together with my team, we know we can achieve what we want, so we won’t stop trying until we get there.”
It was a frustrating start to the weekend as set-up challenges made top speed elusive until Saturday. The lack of optimal pace put Buchanan at a significant disadvantage compared to his rivals, impacting his qualifying aspirations.
“Q1 was disappointing as I trusted myself to go alone, but I just couldn’t put the lap together and show our true potential. We’d made a huge step in FP2 earlier in the day, and I felt strong, but with the changing track conditions, I just couldn’t replicate the lap time needed to give us a crack at Q2,” he said.
“Qualifying and the time attack are still areas I have to work on for the future.”
The MotoGP calendar heads to the TT Circuit Assen for the Tissot Grand Prix of the Netherlands this weekend.
Header Image: Manu Tormo Fotografía
