Damp Race With No Reward For Gresini Racing Team Moto3 Riders At Termas De Rio Hondo
Gresini Racing Team Moto3 riders Enea Bastianini and Fabio Di Giannantonio leave Termas de Rio Hondo without picking up points in a complicated Grand Prix of Argentina, which was held on a damp track after overnight rain.
Starting from the second row, in the early stages of the race with a very damp track Bastianini was unable to keep the pace of the fastest riders, dropping down to 26th place on lap 10. In the final stages, when the track dried out, the 18-year-old rider from Rimini started to get some good lap times, crossing the finish line in 17th position.
Despite the difficult conditions, rookie Fabio Di Giannantonio enjoyed a good race, although his final placement, 25th, was affected by a technical problem that forced him to slow down in the closing laps of the race: the 17-year-old rider from Rome, who showed good progress over the weekend, thus lost some positions and he couldn’t stay in the fight with the group of riders in front of him.
The team now flies to Texas for the third round of the season, scheduled for this weekend at the spectacular Circuit of the Americas, in Austin.
ENEA BASTIANINI (17th)
“Unfortunately, at the beginning of the race, with the track still damp, I was not feeling at ease: probably we choose a little bit too rigid set up and I was unable to maintain a good pace to stay in the leading group. Towards the end of the race, when the track dried more, I managed to get good lap times and I was also faster than the riders in front of me, but unfortunately it was not enough to recover. I’m disappointed because I could have a good race here, in both dry and wet conditions. Unfortunately I struggled in these mixed conditions. However, the Championship is still long and we will have time to show that we are competitive”.
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO (25th)
“The race started very well, and although I was racing for the first time in these mixed conditions, with the track wet in some places and dry in others, I felt immediately a good feeling. I was improvign lap after lap, then unfortunately I started to feel a strange behaviour of the bike, probably for a technical issue that now we need to analyze. I’m disappointed because I had the potential to stay in the group of riders with whom I was fighting. Regardless of today’s result, we still had a good weekend, so we now look forward to the next race!”.
FAUSTO GRESINI
“It was definitely a very difficult race for us: Enea has always struggled a bit in the conditions encountered at the beginning of the race, but in the final stages he managed to be fast, but it was too late to recover. Unfortunately the track was not drying out as fast as we had hoped and as a result today we were unable to fully express our potential. We were not the only ones with problems, but it is a little consolation… Now we have to stay focused to be even stronger in the next races, because we have to start to recover points. Di Giannantonio was slowed down in the final laps by a technical issue on the bike, so we’re going to analyze what went wrong. I’m sorry for his final result, but Fabio nevertheless completed a good weekend, where we have seen a nice growth from him”.
