Avintia's thoughts with Andreas Perez

This weekend’s Catalunya MotoGP will be an emotional event for Reale Avintia, as they return to the circuit where young team-mate Andreas Perez lost his life a week ago in a Moto3 Junior World Championship race.

“It will be a sad weekend for all of us as we lost one of the youngest members of our team,” said Tito Rabat. “Rest in peace Andreas. All my thoughts are with your family and friends.”

Xavier Simeon added: “I want to send all my support to the family of Andreas. His loss has been really hard for the team.”

The loss of Andreas has been especially hard for the Reale Avintia Academy Moto3 GP team, which shares the same structure as the CEV Junior World Championship team.

“It was very hard to hear about Andreas passing away,” said Livio Loi. “He was a really, really fast guy on track, but he was an even better person in real life. His character was unique and he was a real friend, so in Barcelona I’ll race for him.

“I’ll give my best to honour him. I hope to be able to fight for a good result with the team in such difficult moments. We will fight hard for Andreas!”

Andreas’ CEV team-mate Vicente Perez will have a Moto3 wild-card entry this weekend, when he will aim for a strong result to honour his friend.

“What happened with Andreas has been really difficult to come to terms with,” he said.

“To be honest I don’t have the strength to race at this circuit right now, but I will give my best for him and I’ll try to learn as much as possible from this new opportunity in the Moto3 World Championship.

“He always trusted me and that’s why I’ll give my maximum to dedicate the best possible result to Andreas.”