Hanika wins the 2nd chaotic Rookies Cup race in Austin

The Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup held its second race at the Circuit of the Americas, where Hanika took the win, but the race was overshadowed by the nasty crash of Yui Watanabe, who was taken away by ambulance and, fortunately, is not seriously hurt. Now on to the next event at Jerez.

By Gloria22 April 2013 · 2 min read

The second race of the 2013 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup at the Circuit of the Americas has left us with a very chaotic event, since shortly after the start, with Hanika leading and pushing hard, we saw the marshals show the red flag on track.

This decision came after we watched rider Yui Watanabe suffer a very nasty crash after hitting a rival’s rear wheel with her front wheel, literally flying through the air and slamming into the asphalt very hard, ending up stretched out and showing clear signs of pain. Given the conditions and the situation, Race Direction decided to stop the race, and in those minutes the Japanese rider was attended to on the track itself.

After seeing an ambulance enter the circuit to collect the rider, it was known she was being taken to hospital, where the doctors gave us some good news: it looked like a fairly serious crash, and her mentor Nobby Ueda confirmed that Yui was fine. After medical tests, it appears the 46 only has a small hip fracture, which is nothing serious considering the crash.

So the race was restarted with eight laps to go, and we saw Hanika take control again, but a group of about five riders who were going very fast and fighting for the win formed behind her. Among them was Diego Pérez, who unluckily went down in the final laps while battling for victory, but he managed to get back on and finish the race.

Up front, Hanika took her first win of the 2013 Rookies season, followed by Pagliani 0.4s behind and Razgatlioglu completing the podium of this second race 0.8s back. The top 10 was made up of Rayn in 4th, Binder 5th, Martín 6th, Deroue 7th, Perolari 8th, Bastianini 9th and Trautmann 10th. As for the rest of our riders, Ramírez finished 13th, Pérez 14th and Mir 18th.

With this result Hanika moves into the lead, followed by Ray and Pagliani, while the first of our riders in the standings is Martín in 5th, with Pérez 8th, Ramírez 10th and Mir 12th. The next race will be at the Jerez circuit from May 4 to 5, so the young riders will be back in action shortly.

Source | Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup