Terol and Torres back in the points in Czech Grand Prix
The practice sessions for the Czech Republic GP had set out some clear favourites, but the category can never be described as predictable. With a humid track to contend with, the intermediate class riders battled relentlessly with one another for the win at Brno. Fighting to split the pack, four riders eventually came into contention for the win: Luthi, Márquez, Espargaró and Iannone. Márquez made a move with three laps remaining, then held off Luthi for the win. Espargaró eventually took third place behind the duo.
MAPFRE Aspar rider Nico Terol continued to make progress in Moto2 at the Czech Republic GP. He was one of the leading riders in the opening third of the race, fighting to stick with the front group. Chattering from his front tyre created difficulties for the Spaniard once again, accompanying him and causing problems in the same way as riders Kallio, Zarco, Corsi and De Angelis. Despite this, Terol showed his grit and fight to finish as high up the order as possible. In the end he was twelfth –his best result of the season to date.
MAPFRE Aspar teammate Jordi Torres took his first three World Championship points at Brno. The Spaniard lost ground off the line, but a decent and consistent pace established in practice took him up the placings. After twenty laps in which he learnt a great deal, Torres finished thirteenth.
12th Nico Terol: “I am very happy with my performance up until the halfway point of the race. I put up a real fight and wanted to break away with the rest of my group. However, Corsi split us up and I think that if I had latched onto the pack more in the early going, I would have had an easier time of it. I began to push away from the trailing group in order to attempt an escape, and looked at my pitboard to see if I had shaved a few tenths off my time. I had pushed my hardest but hadn’t gained an advantage. I was still having chatter issues today on the front, which distracted me on the final laps. I didn’t know that a large group was coming up behind me and were catching up. We have to be optimistic; we lost places on the last few laps but finished fairly well. I had a good pace going, especially at the start of the race, and we saw that we could ride with the leaders, so we will keep working to battle against them over the next few races.”
13th Jordi Torres: “I had various objectives for this race and I acheived them all. The first of these was to make a strong start and keep my pace up. Thanks to the hard work of the team I was able to run a great pace right from the start and, although I lost a few places off the line, I was able to ride without being intimidated. The other aim was to finish this GP with a good feeling. I enjoyed myself a lot riding and learnt how to control the chatter that hit mid-race. I took a couple of laps to understand the problem, but I didn’t lose any positions. I hope to also find solutions to the lack of pace down the straights soon. The third objective was to ge tinto the points, and I took three today. The team worked extremely hard for all this to happen, so I want to thank them. I am happy with how the weekend went.”
Source: Aspar Team Press Release
