CEV Repsol, Navarra – Race Reports: Moto2, Moto3, Stock Extreme
A week before participating as wild card at the Aragon GP, Maria Herrera achieved at the Navarra Circuit another triumph in the Moto3 class of the CEV Repsol – the first was at MotorLand Aragon. Her team mate, Marcos Ramirez, leads again the overall standings thanks to his third place.
In Moto2, Hafizh Syahrin and Alex Mariñelarena won the two races held, while in Stock Extreme, Xavi Fores achieved his fifth win of the six rounds of the season – he only finished second in Aragon.
After this round, the CEV Repsol takes a break in October and action will resume next November with two exciting final round in Valencia, on the 17th, and in Jerez, only a week later, on the 24th.
Moto3
As it happened in MotorLand Aragon last May 26th, Maria Herrera crossed today again the Finish Line in first position. The rider from Toledo dominated most of the race, although three laps from the end she was third. In that moment, she increased her pace and just before the main straight she overtook Marcos Ramirez and Alejandro Medina at the same time, recovering the first place and keeping it until the end of the race.
In the end, Alejandro Medina was second on the podium and Marcos Ramirez finished in a valuable third place that allowed him to recover the lead he lost in the last round. Now the rider from Cadiz leads the overall standings with an advantage of 3 points over Schouten, second, and 6 over Maria Herrera, third.
Moto2
The rider from Navarra, Alex Mariñelarena, Roman Ramos and Malaysian Hafizh Syahrin were the main protagonist of the double Moto2 race held at the Navarra Circuit. In the first race, the Malaysian was the rider to gather the 25 points awarded to the first placed –followed by Mariñelarena and Ramos–, while in the second that position was for the local rider Alex Mariñelarena, who after a spectacular duel with the leader of the class, Roman Ramos, was able to secure the win and keep his chances to fight for the intermediate class title. In that race, Syahrin finished third.
After the two races held today, Roman Ramos keeps the overall lead, followed by Mariñelarena, 24 points behind, and Syahrin, at 36.
Stock Extreme
Xavi Fores continues his seemingly unstoppable way to the title and today took another step towards that objective, by taking a new victory at the Navarra Circuit. In a race dominated nearly from flag to flag by the Valencian rider, excitement arrived in the second-to-last lap. An electronic failure made Fores lose his comfortable advantage in the lead and saw Carmelo Morales get closer in second position.
In the end, Fores was able to keep his position and secure victory for the fifth time in the 6 rounds already held this season –in Aragon he was second– ahead of Morales, second, and Ivan Silva, third. These three riders finished the last 4 rounds of the CEV Repsol in exactly the same positions. With this result, Fores gets closer to achieving the Stock Extreme title and increases his advantage on top of the overall standings to 29 points over the second, Carmelo Morales, and 50 over the third-placed, Ivan Silva.
Maria Herrera – Moto3 Race Winner
“It was a difficult race. I had a good start and I was behind Gardner. It was difficult to overtake him, but in the end I was able to do it. I try to be calm and keep the good pace I had in the practice, but I saw them behind me and I couldn’t go faster. Medina overtook him. He was a very tough rival, it was also very complicated to pass him again and at the end of the race I felt the back of the bike moving a lot, but I could continue and we won the race.”
Hafizh Syahrin – Moto2 Race 1 Winner
“I am very happy to have achieved my first win ahead of Mariñelarena and Ramos. Yesterday’s qualifying session was difficult. I tried to push to have a good lap time, but there was a lot of traffic. Today I was third in the grid, but in the first lap it didn’t go very well and I finished fifth. I overtook two riders and by mid race I tried to catch Ramos and Mariñelarena, but it was very difficult to overtake them. When I tried to pass Ramos we nearly crashed. I was also able to overtake Mariñelarena at the same point. I am very happy with this victory.”
Alejandro Mariñelarena – Moto2 Race 2 Winner
“Roman [Ramos] was very strong until the last lap. I was behind him since he overtook me. We were both pushing to the limit and I try to fight back. I wasn’t thinking about any special strategy. In the two last laps I was very close to Roman, to be able to take advantage in case he made a mistake and in the last lap corner I went out a bit better and I won the race. Since we started the practice on Friday we had to do everything fast. We were a bit late with the set-up and we started both races today without the bike at 100%. Nevertheless, during the weekend we saw that we have a lot of potential and more improvement margin with the Kalex. I want to congratulate Roman and Hafizh [Syahrin] because they did very good races and also thank the people that where supporting us here in the circuit, as well as the sponsors.”
Xavier Fores – Stock Extreme Race Winner
“In the last lap I had a four-second advantage over Carmelo [Morales] and as there were a lot of lapped riders in front, I decided to take it easy. When I crossed the Finish line, the bike suddenly stopped. Luckily, that also happened last week during our tests and I knew that by resetting the bike it would start working again. I did that, but in that moment I was scared, though in the end everything went well and we were able to win. We are gathering points race after race. In this round I was not too confident because Carmelo was very strong. He set 1 minute and 39 seconds yesterday with race tyres and I couldn’t match it. Today I was lucky, because he had a bad start and I could take advantage of it in the first lap to build my advantage. In the end he was very fast and might have caught me and I could not push that much because the back tyre was at the limit. Finally we could finish in first place and gather another 25 points, which is the most important thing.”
Source: Repsol Media