Julian Simon’s Comeback Continues With Excellent Seventh At Indianapolis

The Moto2 race at Indianapolis was a show one, and short on real excitement compared with the thriller at Brno two weeks prior. The riders were wary of the new asphalt that had yet to pick up reliable levels of grip, and thus many decided to exercise caution over the course of the 26-lap race. Marc Márquez went down the opposite route, pushing hard early on and clocking times similar to his Saturday pole lap. He won the race, ahead of Pol Espargaró and Esteve Rabat.

MAPFRE Aspar rider Julián Simón finally acheived his goal of completing a Moto2 race, -something pending since his horrific accident in Catalonia earlier this season. The Spaniard has bounced back from a broken leg to compete in the World Championship once more, and showed his fight at Indianapolis with a great ride. He had approached things with caution this weekend, but his aim of crossing the finish line drove him on. Starting from fifteenth on the grid, he pushed on in the opening two laps to move up to seventh. There he stayed, completing an excellent race and hitting his target for the weekend.

Eighteenth place for Jordi Torres was the second MAPFRE Aspar rider’s best finish to date in a Moto2 race. He slowly gained speed and continued his adaptation to a class in which he participated for the first time at the Silverstone round. It was a strong result for a newcomer to a highly competitive category.

7th Julián Simón:
“I am very happy to have finally finished a race; that’s one of our aims completed. I am also satisfied with how I made up so many positions, and I was even thinking of pushing harder until I refocused on finishing. It was a hard race, in which the tyres were really battling against us. I tried to conserve them as best I could, but it was a close call on the final laps. I had to be very prudent coming out of some of the slow corners, because the bike was sliding around a lot. If I had got a better start, then maybe I would have been in with a chance of the podium. I’m delighted with this result, after the hard times we’ve had of late. I want to thank the team enormously for their work, which was as stellar as always. They really help raise my morale every day.”

18th Jordi Torres:
“I have to carry on working on riding better as part of a group, and that way I can better fight against the frantic nature of the opening laps. It makes me angry, because I had a good enough pace to be higher up the order but I always play it too safe at the start. As the laps went on I managed to drop my times and ride more at ease. I tried to latch onto a group who were ahead of me, but I was wary of making a mistake because the tyres had already gone off. I World like to finish better, but I feel that we are working well and always focusing on the race at hand. Sooner or later, things will click. I am happy with how we bounced back from some problems on Friday and Saturday, as we found some solutions in the morning warmup.”

Source: Aspar Media