Maverick Viñales, from the tenth spot on the grid, repeated the good performance of the sprint race, managing to maintain the position at the end of the first lap. With a fast race pace, in line with what he had demonstrated throughout the weekend, he made up several positions, finishing sixth once more the best Aprilia under the chequered flag.
It was an extremely unlucky race for Aleix Espargaró, involved in a multi-rider accident on the first lap which compromised his chances of battling for a good result. Fortunately, the Spanish rider came out of the accident unharmed, but he was unable to finish the race.
Also worth a mention is the performance by Raúl Fernández who, after starting from the eleventh spot on the grid, managed to finish the race tenth, improving on his result in the sprint race.
MAVERICK VIÑALES
“It was an outstanding race. We had the pace to battle for the podium, but we still have to be happy with the result. It’s a pity about the qualifiers. On this track, you can’t make a mistake in even one session, because starting from this far back makes it difficult to come back. In the race, I found many positive aspects of the bike – both here and in Misano we found them – and this is encouraging from now to the end of the year.”
ALEIX ESPARGARÓ
“We had a lot of bad luck throughout the entire weekend. We were unable to find the competitiveness we expected. We made some changes to the setup for the long race, but unfortunately we were unable to test them due to the crash I was involved in. I’m optimistic for the GP of Japan and I’ll try to flip the script there.”
MASSIMO RIVOLA
“A weekend below expectations given our speed on this track last year. The qualifiers were compromised by the yellow flags and this certainly conditioned both the Sprint Race and the long race. On open track, Maverick had the pace to finish just off the podium. This was a missed opportunity to bring back a bit of morale in a complicated period for us. We can’t wait to go to Japan to demonstrate our full potential that has not been expressed in recent races.”
<
Discussion about this post