GONZALEZ AND ARENAS ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH, RESPECTIVELY, AT THE FINISH LINE IN SEPANG
It was a difficult race under scorching hot conditions in Sepang: Manuel Gonzalez started the encounter from eighth place on the grid, ready to recover as many points as possible in order to make up further ground in the championship standings. But the heat did change the Spanish rider’s feeling with the bike compared to previous sessions. He crossed the line in eleventh place, scoring five points: he is still fifth in the championship standings, only six points away from the top three.
His teammate Albert Arenas finished right behind him: after what had been a positive weekend up to that point, in which he showed his competitiveness with used tyres, he then struggled to get up to speed in the race. From fourth place on the grid, he made it to the chequered flag in twelfth position. He still scored four points, which allows him to move up one place in the championship standings, where he is thirteenth with 80 points.
11th – MANUEL GONZALEZ #18 (5th in the championship standings with 175 points)
“It was a negative race for us: from the first lap, I couldn’t find the same positive feeling I had on Friday and Saturday, I couldn’t ride the way I wanted and lost a lot of time. I couldn’t overtake because my front was tucking and almost crashed on several occasions. I then focused on making it to the finish line and to score a few points. Obviously I’m not happy, this is a circuit where we could have done well but we ended up losing many points.”
12th – ALBERT ARENAS #75 (13th in the championship standings with 80 points)
“We finished twelfth and obviously I’m not happy. Once again I wasn’t able to be competitive come Sunday and I don’t know what we’re missing to be fast also in the race. Obviously we’re taking everything that was positive this weekend, but we need to understand what happened today. We have the speed but we still need that last step in order to wrap up the weekends the right way by being competitive also on Sunday.”
