It’s been a tough weekend here in Portimão. We didn’t have the chance to test at this track before the race, so from the start we knew it would take extra effort to find the right setting. On Friday, we lost a good amount of time in the box during free practice while working on the bike setup, and that limited our track time. In the Superpole, things went from difficult to worse—I crashed because of another rider who suddenly stopped on the line. Luckily I wasn’t hurt, and I got back to the pit as fast as I could. The team did their best to repair the bike, but we still had a lot of ground to make up going into Saturday.

Saturday’s warm up was all about building more confidence with the bike. In the race, I managed to gain some positions in the opening laps and was fighting in a big group. Unfortunately, the front closed and I crashed out. I got back on the bike right away and stayed out on track to keep working on my pace and collect more data. I eventually caught up with the group at the back and finished ahead of them. It wasn’t the result we wanted, but we made some progress and I was determined to try again on Sunday.

In Sunday’s warm up, we made a good step forward with the setup and the bike felt much better—I was close to the top 10 and felt confident going into the race. I had a strong start and began moving up through the field. Unfortunately, a technical issue forced me to retire. The team is now investigating what happened so we can prevent it from happening again in the future.

It’s been a weekend full of setbacks, but also small improvements that we’ll take with us into the next round. We’ll keep pushing and come back stronger.