Simoncelli Admits Fuel Issues with His Honda

Gresini Honda's Marco Simoncelli enjoyed a good start of the season this year, after qualifying 4th and finishing 5th in the Qatar GP. That, in addition to his good performances in testing this past winter, have given him a boost for the ongoing campaign, even though the Italian rider reckons things could go better in 2011.

However, one problem that he's forced to be confronted with is the fact that his size causes his Honda bike to eat up more fuel during the race. And although running out of fuel was never a problem for the former 250cc champion, he admits this problem gives him plenty of headaches with the bike setup each weekend.

“My problem is that I'm bigger than the other riders and this messes up the consumption and I have to go with a little more lean set-up, and this is not good for the bike's performance on the straight,” said Simoncelli, prior to this weekend's Spanish GP, at Jerez.

“I did some tests and my feeling is a little bit different from the other Honda riders. I'm bigger, my weight is more and this is the main problem,” he added.

Simoncelli tackled the same problem in Qatar, as he reckoned he had to adjust his riding style in straight line in order to take care of the fuel consumption problem.

“At the end of the race I arrived with fuel in the tank, but the problem is that to arrive with fuel in the tank I have to go with a more lean fuel set-up, so the bike can push less,” he reckoned.