Héctor Barberá satisfied and disappointed with his race at Laguna Seca

Rider Héctor Barberá had a good race at the United States Grand Prix at the Laguna Seca circuit, finishing ninth in this way settling his score with the North American track, on the day he celebrated his 150th Grand Prix start.

With this race, the first part of the MotoGP World Championship has come to an end. Riders can now enjoy a short break until the next event at Brno on 14 August.

For Barberá it was a very important day, first because of his 150th Grand Prix start, and second because last season he couldn’t finish due to a mechanical failure, so Laguna Seca owed him a result, and now he has achieved it.

Furthermore, the number 8 had good pace on track. The shame was the choice of rear tyre, since they opted for the soft compound, which wasn’t the most successful choice, and for that reason he couldn’t fight much with the rest of the riders.

Despite those difficulties he managed to finish the race, just behind the Ducati factory riders and Edwards, so not bad at all.

Below you can see the statements from Héctor Barberá:

The truth is it was a rather strange race. At the start everything looked good for achieving my goal, which was to stay with the factory Ducatis.

But then I started to notice that I was losing the rear end, we had fitted a soft rear tyre, and the bike was moving a lot.

Also, on a couple of occasions I had problems with the gears on the straight, I’m not really sure why. At that point Valentino and Nicky got away from me, as I lost almost a second in two laps. Afterwards I opted for an engine map with more power, I had to hold the bike up with sheer arm strength, and by lap ten my shoulders had started to tire.

That’s where I dropped off a little, I couldn’t brake the bike properly. The race didn’t go as well as the practice sessions, but even so we finished in ninth place.

On one hand it’s positive, because I consider it a good result, but on the other I’m disappointed with myself, I think today I could have done more.

Source | Mapfre Aspar Team