THE EMILIA-ROMAGNA GP IS IN THE BOOKS, NOW FOCUS ON INDONESIA
The standard bearers of team QJMOTOR GRESINI Moto2 had a challenging race at Misano as they both had to start the encounter halfway through the grid. Manuel Gonzalez lined up in fifteenth place, ready for a comeback. He immediately made his way to the top ten, which he lost for the slightest of margins on the final lap. He crossed the line in eleventh place, bringing home 5 points for the championship race – he is currently ninth with 68 points to recover from the leader.
From fourteenth place on the grid, his teammate Albert Arenas made a mistake on the opening lap at turn 14 as the front of his Kalex machine tucked leading to a near crash. He managed to save it, but he found himself back in twenty-fourth position and from there on, his real comeback began. Courtesy of a quite competitive pace, he managed to make his way back to seventeenth place, very close to the points.
On the grid, there was also the wildcard rider Matteo Ferrari in twenty-fifth place: the Italian struggled to get up to speed in the opening laps with full tank, he improves in the second part, when a technical problem forced him back to the pits.
11th – MANUEL GONZALEZ #18
“It was a very difficult race: we started fifteenth and it was hard to come back, especially at this circuit where riders are all very close. I struggled on lap one to make some room for myself, but then I managed to make my way into the top ten. The more the laps went by, however, the more I was having a difficult time with the bike: I was at the limit and as I tried to make up some more ground, I was ending up making mistakes, as the bike was moving a lot under braking. We’ll take this experience to improve for the next race”.
17th – ALBERT ARENAS #75
“We were starting from the back today. I gave my all on lap one and made up some positions, but then I tried a move on the outside at turn 14 and my front tucked, and that ruined my race as I dropped back to 24th position. I tried to bounce back and finished 17th. Obviously this is not where we want to be, but we got some useful information and confirm our improvement, especially in the second part of the race. We’ll start back from this result and focus on Indonesia.”
DNF – MATTEO FERRARI #23
“Such a shame for how it went today as we experienced a technical issue and couldn’t finish the encounter. The feeling was the same as yesterday but unfortunately I didn’t have much experience with the full tank so I struggled in the early laps. We found back the speed in the second half of the race and we could have made our way up to 19th because we were making ground from the riders ahead. Compared to the top 15 we missed the first part of the race. I’m sorry for the team that I couldn’t finish the race, but we did our best.”
