Thrilling Moto2 race sees Espargaro take first win of the season, Rabat 9th, heavy crash for Pons

Pol Espargaró took victory in the Qatar Grand Prix, the inaugural race of the Moto2 championship, starting from pole position.

The Tuent HP 40 rider did a smart race, following the strong pace of Takaaki Nakagami and Scott Redding in the first half of the race before engaging in a spectacular head-to-head battle with the Brit in the last lap. It’s been a hard earned win, the first of the year and earned after a heavy crash which almost ruined his qualifying yesterday.

Tito Rabat was not able to confirm the expectations from the warmup and during the race the bumping issues returned which made it difficult to enter the corners well. After being in fourth position for many laps he eventually took 9th place and collected some points which might be very important during the season.

Axel Pons crashed out in the fourth lap when he had already moved up half a dozen positions and was right behind Xavier Simeon who finished the race in 10th.

1. POL ESPARGARÓ “Starting the season with a win is a dream and especially after a difficult race weekend, with a crash in between and in which we didn’t have things quite worked out. The team did a great job and in the race I was competitive, also learning behind Nakagami and Redding some secrets about the partial laptimes. At the beginning I couldn’t follow Nakagami and luckily Redding had the pace to catch up. Then we opened a gap and in the final lap I had to push hard to keep him behind me, despite already seeing his front wheel on my left side. I’ve never started the year with a victory, also from pole position, and it’s been difficult and hard work, so the joy is tremendous.”

9. TITO RABAT “Since the qualifying there was something not quite right with the bike. I though we had solved it in the warmup where I found a pretty good rhythm, but in the race it cam back and I couldn’t ride as I wanted. Getting the bike into the corners was impossible and I was about to crash in every lap, even riding a second slower than yesterday. It was very tough to even finish, so the only good thing is the seven points I got. We have to look at the telemetry with teh team and go searching for the root of the problem to solve it ahead of the race in the US.”

AXEL PONS, crash “I started highly confident and I felt good on teh bike. The problem is that I wanted to quickly recover everything I’ve lost through the crash in qualifying. The eagerness turned out badly, I made a mistake and I crashed when I was behind Simeon who finished 10th. While I was on track I went fast and recovered positions, with a good feeling on the bike. It’s a shame, but I take away the good things and I hope to have that good feeling again in two weeks in Texas.”

Source: Pons Racing Press Release