Brilliant performance by Luis Salom crowned with podium, Maverick Viñales crashes out

The Argentinian GP at the circuit of Termas de Rio Hondo saw Luis Salom take his first Moto2 podium. Both Salom and Viñales got a good start. Maverick completed the first lap of the race, scheduled for a total of 33, in third position while his teammate in the Pond HP 40 team was sixth.

Unfortunately Maverick crashed in the first corner of lap three, without any chance to continue the race. With Viñales out of the race, Salom could get himself into third position, attached to the rear of Belgian rider Xavier Simeón.

The two leading riders could open up a little gap between themselves and Salom and Corsi, who were battling for third position, with Swiss rider Aegerter pursuing them. With four laps to go, Salom could overtake Corsi, getting back into third position and upping the pace hoping to open up a gap. By doing so, Luis set the fastest lap and could hold on to third place, achieving his first Moto2 podium in the third race of the season.

Luis Salom – 3rd place
I’m very happy with the result that we achieved. The team did a fantastic job this weekend. We started very badly on Friday, we were far behind and a lot slower than the fastest rider. But on Saturday we made some changes on the bike that helped me a lot. Something had changed also in my mind and I finally got back to enjoying myself on the bike during the race. When Corsi overtook me I decided to stay behind him because there were a couple of overtaking manoeuvres that were a bit hairy, and more than anything I wanted to finish the race. To finish in the top six would have been a great result for me and I didn’t want to throw that chance away. With 3 laps to go, I overtook Corsi and was able to pull away a little. I’d like to thank the team for helping me so much with my adaptation to Moto2, which is a complicated category.

Maverick Viñales – DNF
I was riding along like previously, and without doing anything special, I found myself in the air without any chance to avoid the crash. I feel very bad to end the race like that because I enjoyed the weekend a lot and we had a great pace to be fighting for the podium. Also, with the crash so early on, I didn’t even have much chance to get more laps and more experience in this category under my belt. We now have to focus on the next race this coming weekend, it’ll be a home race and we’ll continue to work hard.

Source: Pons Racing