Tito triumphant at the Brickyard, frustration for Pol

The Tuenti HP 40 team leaves Indianapolis with the hard fought for victory of Tito Rabat, the fourth place of Pol Espargaró who loses three points to the championship leader, and a feverish infection that stopped Axel Pons from starting the race.

It was a spectacular win by Tito Rabat, his second of the season, after fighting his way to the front from position 6 during the last 10 laps and crossing the “brick yard” as race winner. Tito, who had a great rhythm during free practice, rode a very clever race, with a good start, a controlled first half of the race and a lethal attack in the end. With this result, he confirms his current third place in the championship, now 20 points behind Pol and 19 ahead of Dominique Aegerter.

Pol Espargaró, who always managed a podium position at this US circuit, finished this race in fourth and lost 3 points with respect to Scott Redding, who now leads with an 26 point advantage. Polyccio looked like he could finish the race in second position but in the end the tyres were too worn and he was relegated to fourth place.

Alex Pons’ run of bad luck continues as he started to come down with a feverish infection from Friday, which got gradually worse. Today, with almost 39 degrees fever, he had to abort the warm up and the medical staff advised him against starting the race as it would have been too risky.

1. Tito Rabat
This was a very enjoyable race and at the end I was able to achieve the second race win of the season. I struggled a bit at the start and during the first few laps, and I found myself behind Nakagami, Redding and Pol, and I got overtaken by Terol and Aegerter. It was impossible for me to overtake them and I decided to stay behind them for a while to conserve my tyres. About halfway through the race they started to drop a little bit and I thought that was the time to attack them. One by one I could overtake my rivals, and once I’d passed Nakagami and was leading the race, I tried to pull away as much as I could and I was able to cross the brick yard in first position. In Indianapolis this is my first podium in Moto2 and here I won the second race of this 2013 season. The summer break did me good, I recovered from the fracture in my foot and I recharged batteries for the second half of the season, in which my aim will be to be amongst the best at every race and not give up on anything.

4. Pol Espargaró
I ended up with the bike skidding and unridable during the last couple of laps because of the rear tyre. I was able to get to second place and I tried to attack Nakagami, but because I pushed so hard I found myself without any rear grip and in the end I couldn’t prevent Tito, who I want to congratulate on his win, and Scott passing me. I expected to be able to take a couple of points off Redding and ended up losing 3. I always finished on the podium in Indianapolis, 5 times in a row, and this time it wasn’t possible. I have to look ahead now because on Friday we’ll be on track in Brno and I’m positive we can achieve a better result there.

DNS. Axel Pons
On Friday I started coming down with fever and felt a bit weak, but I thought I wouldn’t have any problems fighting for a good result this weekend. The problem was that it got worse and this morning I had 39 degrees fever. I had to stop the warm up because I just couldn’t concentrate on riding. The doctors advised me not to start the race because it would have been too dangerous.

Source: Pons Racing