Team HRC set for season-opening MXGP of Qatar
By Team TMX on 23rd Feb 16
Team HRC are ready to come out fighting at the opening event of the 2016 MXGP season, feeling quietly confident ahead of the Qatari event at Losail
The rider line-up of Gautier Paulin and Evgeny Bobryshev remains unchanged, but both riders have very much changed their off-season routines in preparation for this season.
Paulin has been training in the US since the end of 2015 and has really put himself through his paces at the renowned Baker's Factory to ensure he comes into 2016 in peak fitness and can put the injury gremlins of last year behind him. The Frenchman starts his second season with Team HRC and is eager to return to a happy hunting ground, scoring as he did a debut podium at Losail last year.
Meanwhile, Bobryshev also travelled to the US for the winter but returned to Europe in January, and promptly took the Italian International MX crown. Adopting a different approach to his training and racing, the Russian, who is in his seventh year with Honda and enjoyed his best season in MXGP last year, is by his own admission a million miles ahead of where he started his 2015 campaign.
On an evolved and improved Honda CRF450RW, the factory pairing will take to the track for the first time on Friday 26 February, and the gate drops on the first race at 1815hrs local time on Saturday.
