Repsol team, highs and lows at Mugello

After a close race in Moto3, the championship tightens a little more after the poor result at Sachsenring, where Viñales has cut nine points off Sandro Cortese‘s lead in the overall standings. Despite trying, the rider has not managed to take the victory away from him.

On the other hand, we have his teammates, Alex Rins and Miguel Oliveira. The Spaniard fought very hard from the first lap, and we expected to see him battling for the race, but little by little he could not keep up the pace as his tyres wore down. In the end, seventh is a good result, although he certainly won’t be satisfied with it.

Oliveira suffered a crash due to lack of pace all weekend. In the race he managed to keep the pace, but not having had it throughout the whole weekend cost him a mistake that left him out of the race.

Maverick Viñales (1st):

At the start of the race there was no point in pushing hard because the tyres were new and everyone could follow the pace, so I waited for the tyres to wear a little and for there to be few laps left before raising the pace. I saw the opportunity when Danny Kent slipped through and I took the chance to break up the group. I rode many laps at first and I could see that they weren’t passing me, but I knew that sooner or later they would have to, so I decided to go first into the last corner.

It was a very fair victory but, after what happened in Germany, getting back on the podium and with a win is very good for us. This victory gives me peace of mind and confidence before we go on holiday. We will return to action at a very difficult track, Indianapolis, with a very long straight that requires acceleration, so we will have to improve and make ourselves stronger.

Miguel Oliveira (crash):

I made a good start and got off to a good beginning of the race. After the start I recovered several positions and made contact with the leading group, but when throughout the whole weekend you have not been able to ride at this pace, obviously that has a direct impact on the setup and feeling with the bike. The bike’s behaviour is different in these conditions and this, to a certain extent, has been one of the factors that caused my crash. We must be positive and I think we have learned many things over the weekend.

Álex Rins (7th):

Honestly, I expected much more. We should indeed be satisfied with the result if we analyse the situation: debut at the circuit and debut in the category, but for me, it’s not like that. I ran out of rear grip halfway through the race, and before the first Rabiatta I had a scare that made me drop off the leading group. I tried to run my race, but when you’re in a group it’s complicated. One of our goals was not to be first into the last corner so we could take the slipstream of the leading riders. But even so, we could not complete a race that we had started off well. It’s difficult to ride like this; it’s a shame because we had the pace to finish on the podium.

In the intermediate class, Moto2, Marc Márquez, the sole representative of the Spanish oil company, finished fifth, thus masking a bad weekend for his team, and he remains leader of the standings with a 34-point advantage.

The race started well, but Iannone, Luthi, Nakagami and Espargaró were not going to make things easy for him, and so he finished a little further back than we are used to seeing him, and it already feels strange not to see him on the podium. But eleven points are very good points for a championship that is still ongoing and of which half remains.

Marc Márquez (5th):

We are not satisfied. The best thing is that we added 11 points, because at one point in the race I saw myself on the ground. We have suffered quite a lot, we have to be honest. We have spent the whole weekend salvaging what we could. From the first lap I have felt an excessive bounce, out of the ordinary, because yesterday I didn’t have it. I tried to ride more smoothly or more aggressively, and in every way it was still there. After nearly falling twice, I thought about the World Championship and in the end it’s better to score 11 points than none.

To close the Repsol-sponsored riders, we have the HRC team of MotoGP, with Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner. In today’s race Lorenzo gave no alternative and only Dani could have fought him a bit today, but the big advantage gained by the Mallorcan prevented any surprise. Now Dani is 19 points behind

Meanwhile, Casey Stoner had one of the worst races we have seen from him in recent times. He blames everything on the new tyres, with which they have not achieved a set-up that lets them go well in the race. A off-track excursion forced him to fight back up to eighth position, already conceding 37 points to Jorge.

Dani Pedrosa (2nd):

I braked late into the first corner, but I left a small gap and Jorge was already there. A little further on, Dovizioso surprised me; he passed me and it took me several laps to get past him again, as he was very strong in the first corner, so I had to wait to pass him a bit further on. At that point Jorge had already opened a small gap, but I tried to recover the pace and started riding at 1’47.

When I wanted to stay at those times, the rear tyre started to slide and a lot of chattering appeared; I was worried that the tyre would not last until the end. At that point I decided to slow the pace a bit because to catch Jorge I had to be going at 1’47 every lap. He has ridden very well today and he deserves congratulations; second place is a good result for us, the maximum we could aspire to today, so many thanks to the team for the great work they have done once again this weekend.

Casey Stoner (8th):

It’s not at all the result we expected today; we thought we could fight for the podium and perhaps have the pace to be with Dani. Jorge has ridden fantastically all weekend and has not made a single mistake, but I think we could have been third today. But we did not manage to get the bike working well. In the warm-up nothing worked, we were not happy with the bike, I did not feel comfortable.

I made a mistake in the race, I had a small scare coming out of corner 11 and when I got to 12 I had no brakes. I pressed them as hard as I could and thought I could stop the bike before running off track, but in the end I went off and lost a lot of time there. I’m sorry about the incident I had with Álvaro; I went to overtake him at corner 2 and he started to close the door until he reached my front wheel and I couldn’t do anything. It’s a frustrating end to a difficult weekend that I thought I could somehow salvage, but unfortunately I couldn’t.

Source | Repsol Media