Maverick Viñales takes perfect Aragon Moto2 victory
Maverick Viñales, who is in his debut this year in the intermediate category, bagged his second win of the season at the circuit of Motorland Aragón.
The rider of the Páginas Amarillas HP 40 team, who started from the front of the grid afyer securing pole position during yesterday’s qualifying, made his intention of winning this GP clear right from lap 1.
When the starting lights went out, Mika Kallio, who also started from the front row of the grid, made a great start and was leading the race on the first lap, followed closely by Viñales, Zarco, Rabat and Aegerter.
Maverick realised he could up the pace of the group and decided to overtake Kallio immediately. Maverick then increased the pace and managed to open a small gap to the chasing pack. He scored several consecutive fastest laps to increase the gap to the following riders to 2.6 seconds.
With this gap as buffer, the rider of the Páginas Amarillas HP 40 primarily concentrated on maintaining the concentration to keep up the advantage. Maverick did a perfect job and did not give any opportunities to Rabat, who couldn’t succeed in overtaking Viñales.
Thus the pupil of Sito Pons earned the second win of the season, which is his sixth podium in the Moto2 category.
Furthermore, Viñales has mathematically clinched the title of rookie of the year, for which he’s fighting with his teammate Luis Salom, he moved into the provisional third place in the championship standing and also reduced the points distance separating him from second place.
The race was more difficult for Luis Salom who lost several positions on lap one and found himself in a large group of riders who fought for eighth place.
Salom slowly found his rhythm to run similar times to that of the leading group at the end of the race.
Luis finished the race in 13th position and addsfurther points to his tally, improving one place in the overall standings and moving into eighth place.
Maverick Viñales – 1st place
It was a great race. This morning it was raining and we did not know how things would turn out.. Kallio went very fast, as always, and I knew I had to stay on his wheel. Then I saw that I could go faster and I decided to pass him. From then on I focused to keep my rhythm and check the development of the race, which my team communicated to me on my pit board. I want to thank the team because they did a great job all weekend. We got the pole and victory, which represents a great weekend. Now we need to continue like this because I am able to win more races before the end of the season.
Luis Salom – 13th place
At the start I made a mistake and almost jumped the lights. I lost some positions on the first lap and some more when I touched with West and I had to go through the wet part of the track Halfway through the race I started lap faster and was in a group where I could fight for eighth. I’m feeling good because I could lap fast despite the circumstances.
Source: Pons Racing
