Faubel and Moncayo not getting the race results they were hoping for
The wait was over and finally Grand Prix action returned for 2012, as the Losail International Circuit kicked off the season with the maiden Moto3 race. The riders in the new category took to the grid at 7pm local time, without a same-night warmup session due to the peculiarities of the Qatar GP schedule. Expectation was at a high and the Moto3 race provided plenty of excitement to satisfy fans, with many groups of riders battling for positions. The first lap record in the new class -2’07.276- was faster than the pole lap -2.08.188- by some distance. Viñales took the victory from Fenati, whilst Cortese completed the podium. Seven riders retired from the race.
Héctor Faubel and Alberto Moncayo took a points haul of four and two, respectively, from the Qatar season opener. The BANKIA Aspar Moto3 riders both achieved better times in the race than in any practice session, and took great strides towards eliminating a chassis problem that had persisted all weekend. Many solutions were found inbetween yesterday’s warmup and tonight’s race, although traffic and a battle-hungry group of competitors slowed down their progress in the chase for better positions. Despite being unable to establish a consistent pace, the pair placed twelfth – Héctor – and fourteenth – Alberto.
12th Héctor Faubel: “I am happy with my start today, which took me up to the second group straight away. It’s a pity that on the third lap I ran wide after coming into contact with another rider, as that lost me places. I was part of a group who put up a huge fight, which ended up holding everyone back and I couldn’t break away. It was a tough race but I leave Qatar with plenty of hope for the future, because we found some solutions between the warmup and the race for a front end problem – one that had been plaguing us all weekend. We know that we still have work to do in order to find a better chassis setting and be able to open the throttle earlier. We also need more of a response from the engine.”
14th Alberto Moncayo: “The start didn’t go as well as I wanted and I found myself in a group hungry for a fight. I tried to keep a consistent pace up, but we were all causing one another so many problems that we were getting interrupted. I had trouble getting comfortable and I made a mistake at the start that dropped me down the order. In general, however, I was just lacking a little aggression. I was satisfied with the Kalex chassis, we solved a few issues from the beginning of the weekend but we still could have squeezed a bit more power out of the engine. This wasn’t the result that we were hoping for, but the championship has only just begun and we will be working hard to be stronger at Jerez.”
Source: Aspar Team
