Cardús takes first point of the season after tough pass in last lap

After a bad start Ricky Cardús did not budge and went from 21st to 15th position over the line at Estoril. It’s not his first point in the world championship, but his first of the season and the first of the Argiñano Racing Team in the Moto2 championship. It’s a young team which after almost no preseason got points in their third race, with a Spanish bike which has never been outside the Spanish Championship.

It was a typical start of Moto2, with a lot of elbows and danger. At the end of the long straight it came to a head and some touches between riders. Luckily Ricky found himself on the right, but lost some positions and from the beginning he had to recover from 21st place. After the first lap he was 20th and from then on could only start finding a pace which would allow him to achieve his goal of scoring points. It’s been a long race and Ricky was keeping up a constant fight with the same riders, unable to get away from their attacks. He passed them and they passed him back, nobody giving up.

With seven laps to go, riding in 19th place, Ricky started to prepare his final attack. He made up three positions in one lap and then it looked like he was stuck in 16th until in the last lap he made a final pass which allowed him to celebrate the first points of the Argiñano Racing Team. In that final lap he touched with French rider Mike Di Meglio who crashed out. Ricky afterwards apologized.

Ricky Cardús (15º): “I went to apologize to Mike Di Meglio, I was a bit intruding, we touched and he crashed, I’m not proud of that move. This is the first point for the team in the world championship, this should be the beginning and and we’ll continue to put in a lot of effort and motivation in this project. I have to work on the start, because at the end of the straight a big bundle formed as always and you have to know how to adapt. It’s been a race in which we applied the work from the weekend. I did my fastest lap on Saturday behind another rider, but we did a lot of work after that and the result shows. I started from 12th and in the first lap I was relegated to 21st and then we had to recover. We have to improve as a team and as a rider and our work has given us this point. Regarding the bike I think we need to improve in terms of aerodynamcis.”

Gorka Segura, chief mechanic: “Firstly, thanks to everyone for their efforts. In the warmup we tested a configuration with used tyres which we were going to use in the race, we put a soft one on the front and hard on the rear. At the start Ricky lost a lot of positions which he then recovered. We follow this ascending line, we know what we need and what our strengths are. And I agree that the aerodynamics can improve. But we’re very satisfied.”

Source: Argiñano Racing