Faubel loses out on podium after good group battle, Moncayo takes two points
Light rain in the MotoGP warmup left things cooler on track for the Moto3 Catalan GP than in practice. However, the action on track was just as intense. Louis Rossi led the way early on, before being overtaken by Khairuddin and subsequently Maverick Viñales, who subsequently broke free for the race win. The battle between seven riders for the podium spots behind him allowed Viñales to pull away, and the rostrum spots were only decided at the end of the contest. Cortese and Oliveira accompanied home rider Viñales in the top three when the chequered flag fell. It was a slow race when compared with times from practice and qualifying.
BANKIA Aspar rider Héctor Faubel did not have destiny on his side at the Catalan GP, as he deserved to place on the podium but it wasn’t to be in the end. The Spaniard started from seventh on the grid and made an intelligent start that took him to the lead group. Experience was on his side and he kept up with the rest of the podium challengers for an extended period. However, with two laps to go he was hit by another rider and lost touch with the trailing pack. In the end he managed to recover and claim seventh place.
Teammate Alberto Moncayo earned two more points for his World Championship tally. Although it was not as impressive a result as his second place last time out, the difficulty of the weekend made this a praiseworthy performance. Three laps in he ran wide, returning to the track in nineteenth before moving up to a definitive fourteenth.
7th Héctor Faubel: “Today was a positive race for me, in which I was able to feel competitive again. I was in the podium fight the whole time and I think that I had things under control; my strategy was to stick in third or fourth and then attack second place on the home straight of the final lap. However, one of Márquez’ passes on one of the latter laps knocked my handlebars and meant that I had to go very wide in order to avoid a crash. I lost time and positions, but I was still able to pass two riders before the end. It is a shame, because we were hoping for a better result, but we are happy with how competitive we were and with how much we fought. The category is like this, you are always battling, so we have to move on and try to adapt for the next race. The new chassis has done its job and we have taken a step forward, so I hope that we can continue like this.”
14th Alberto Moncayo: “After a difficult start I focused on setting my pace in order to get past as many riders as possible. I was setting some good times, but on the penultimate corner of the third lap I ran off track and got caught by a group of riders. That meant I had to ride amongst them and it was hard to maintain my position. I decided to stay back in order to study their lines, whilst in terms of tyres the intermediates that we had chosen for the front was completely worn down. I pushed hard on the final two laps and was able to claim back some positions and get a gap between myself and the group. I was able to take fourteenth in the end, which is two points but obviously not our objective. From now on we have to be more alert in qualifying to get a better spot on the grid.”
Source: Aspar Team