Qatar Grand Prix – Report

The fourth round of the season took place at one of the most iconic circuits on the calendar: the Lusail Circuit. The unique race of the year held at night, the Qatar Airways Grand Prix of Qatar, posed its own unique challenges. Despite the demanding desert conditions, Eddie O’Shea managed to finish the race and crossed the line in 18th position. 

The weekend didn’t start as we had hoped for Adrian Cruces, who travelled to Qatar to stand in for Marcos Uriarte, still recovering from his injury on the right wrist. Adrián started the weekend with good feelings, but a crash during FP1 led to a small fracture in his left foot. After the medical assessments, doctors declared him unfit for the rest of the weekend. 

With temperatures dropping more than 10ºC between daytime and night sessions, Eddie O’Shea focused on getting comfortable in the constantly changing grip levels Lusail is known for. He finished FP1 in 17th place with a fastest time of 02:06.044. He improved in the evening during the PR to 02:04.813, placing 19th. 

On Saturday morning, he continued progressing, finishing 16th in FP2, but a crash in Q1 while pushing for a fast lap time took away the possibility of making it into Q2. That put him 23rd on the grid, starting from the eighth row for Sunday’s race. 

The race came with his particular challenges. The wind shifted direction, which made it difficult for Eddie to maintain rhythm and close the gap to their group. Despite that, he managed to finish the race in 18th place—a respectable result after a demanding weekend under the Qatari lights. 

Eddie O’Shea: Still not coming easy to me at the moment but we are working hard to get everything sorted for the European stint!

David Eltherington (Team Manager): Eddie had a good race ace throughout the weekend but we struggled to get a good slipstream on the long 1km straight which resulted in P23 starting position for the race. In the race we struggled to hold on to the rider group, but fought to the end to finish P18. We look forward to heading back to Europe and having a hard reset for the team into this part of the season.