Superb second for Alex Rins in Catalunya, Luis Salom 5th, Edgar Pons 17th

At the seventh round of the season, held at the Barcelona-Catalunya Circuit, the Páginas Amarillas HP 40 riders offered a great show to the 97.000 fans that showed up at the track to watch the races live.

The rookie Alex Rins, that started from the seventh place of the grid, made a very good start and was able to recover three positions in the first lap, placing himself fourth at the end of the first lap, with a distance of one second to the rider before him, the Swiss Dominique Aegerter.

Rins focused then in closing that gap, despite the twenty three staples that covered his arm after undergoing surgery last week, he didn’t want to lose contact with the leading riders so he kept pushing to maintain his chances of winning. In two laps, Rins caught Aegerter and rode very close to his back tyre, and in the next lap he overtook him and took the second place.

Laps went by until Sito Pons’ pupil decided to overtake the leader, Tito Rabat, on the eleventh lap and tried to leave him behind. Seeing that he was unable to open a gap with Rabat, Lowes and Zarco, Alex decided to go back to the second place and study Rabat’s riding, to see where he was faster and get ready to fight for the victory in the final laps.

When there were only two laps left, Alex overtook Rabat but he made a mistake and lost his place again, not only to Rabat but to Zarco too. In the last lap, when Rins was third, Zarco overtook Rabat and Rins took advantage of it to go up to the second place and score the third podium of the season, scoring another twenty points that place him fifth in the Championship.

Luis Salom completed a very good race as well, he started from the sixth place of the grid. Salom, trapped in the second group and losing track of the leading riders, started to pull from his followers in order to close the gap with the first group. But Salom’s effort wasn’t enough and he had to settle with fighting for the fifth, position that he finished in, repeting his best result of the season as of now.

Edgar Pons’ race was remarkable as well, since this was only his second time in this season at the World Championship. Edgar found himself in the middle of a crash at the first corner and had to go wide, losing a few places. From then, the yougest of the Pons brothers focused of riding fast and regained positions progressively to finish seventeenth, very close to his first points in the Championship.

2nd ALEX RINS
“The race was hard because the temperature was very high and the top riders had a very fast pace. I think it was a good race and I felt strong. In the second to last lap I made two small mistakes and I think that’s where I lost my chances of winning. Anyway, I learnt a lot from Rabat and Zarco, and I believe we’ve taken a step forward regarding consistency for the upcoming races”.

5th LUIS SALOM
“I ain’t happy because I didn’t make a good start. In the first lap I was fourth but Zarco pushed me out of the track and Luthi overtook me. After that, I started to push hard and caught Aegerter, Luthi and Zarco, I was fourth trying to get to the first three, but Zarco overtook me again and I went a bit wide. From then on, I started to have problems witht he back tyre, that started to slide a lot. I wasn’t able to open the throttle because it started to slide and I almost crashed. I rode carefully until the end to finish the race as close to the top as possible”.

17th EDGAR PONS
“I’m very happy to have the opportunity of taking part in the World Championship and learn from all the riders. In yesterday’s qualifying session I wasn’t able to complete a fast lap and that makes the race a lot more complicated. I tried to make a good start and I regained a few places, but in the first corner I stayed in the outside and there were a lot of riders there, one of them pushed me and I went wide. After that I tried to recoger and little by little I overtook a few riders. These type of races are very hard and I think I learnt a lot, I’m very happy because I took the chance and made the most of it, adquiring a lot of experience”.

Source: Pons Racing