Excellent Podium For Faubel At Soaking Silverstone

A wet 125cc race at Silverstone closed the 2011 British Grand Prix, won by Jonas Folger from Johann Zarco. Third place in the soaking contest was Héctor Faubel, showing that it wasn’t just a race for the new generation of World Championship talent. Nico Terol started from pole, but gradually dropped down the order whilst the leading two built up their advantage.

Whilst the youngsters had their time to shine at the front, the most experienced rider on the grid finally took his first podium of the year. Héctor Faubel ended his long wait with an excellent ride, starting from seventh on the grid. It had been his worst qualifying performance of the year, but the Spaniard made up for his Saturday discomfort with an excellent start. He was up to fourth by the end of the opening lap and was hunting down the top three. He could even afford to plot a victory towards the end of the race, but a scare with seven laps remaining convinced Faubel that settling for third would be the best option.

Adrián Martín also had a fantastic day, achieving his best finish to date in the World Championship. He also had a late incident, with four laps remaining, that led to him backing off and finishing the race in an excellent sixth place. Martín also clocked the fastest lap of the race.

BANKIA Aspar’s World Championship leader, Nico Terol, had a more difficult time, but showed his maturity by bringing his bike home in eighth place, continuing his charge towards the title.

3rd Héctor Faubel:
“It is strange to have taken a podium on the weekend in which I felt the least at ease when riding. I hadn’t got in tune with the circuit, I was starting from seventh and the race was always going to be difficult, but we managed to take a great result. The rain intensified as the race went on and the bike was particularly unstable on the older parts of the surface. I had a spell in which I cut the gap to those at the front and I could even think about winning. However, the bike had a moment and I ran off onto the grass, so from then on I decided to ease up a little. I haven’t had much luck so far this year, so I preferred to settle for a safe podium. This result is an enormous weight off my shoulders and kickstarts my season. I hope that this is a turning point, because we have been working very hard and not getting results that reflect this. It was only a question of time. I want to thank the team for their effort in making sure that this moment arrived.”

6th Adrián Martín:
“I am enormously happy. I needed this result to have a bit more belief in myself, and to continue to gain confidence. It wasn’t an easy weekend and the track isn’t one of the simplest for me, but it looks like the rain was on our side today. I tried to push hard right to the finish, but I had a ‘tank-slapper’ that needed a miracle to save myself from crashing. I could see that the podium was close, but I would have been happy enough with finishing behind Héctor. I was riding on the edge and could have crashed at any time. I want to thank the team for an incredible job and to Jorge for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this team -I am a very lucky guy.”

8th Nico Terol:
“We started well this morning; in the warmup I felt good but found that something wasn’t working as soon as we started the race. I made a good start and was in the lead, but I saw that I felt nowhere near as good as I had this morning. The team did a great job, but I just didn’t feel comfortable today. The rear slid out whenever I got on the throttle, which gave me a few scares. The race seemed to go on forever, which can happen with conditions like these. I wanted to focus on taking as many points as possible and now I can focus on Assen.”

Source: Aspar Media