BOTH RIDERS IN THE POINTS, BUT THE GAMBLE DID NOT PAY OFF
RACE – #PortugueseGP Race number five of the 2022 Moto2 World Championship was full of surprises, with the weather once again being a major factor in the unfolding of proceedings. After a start with dry set-up and tyres despite the threat of rain, during lap nine the encounter was stopped due to a crash at turn two involving several riders.
A new, seven-lap sprint race was then scheduled, which made the right choice even more difficult to take – especially as there were already some drops of rain falling on the track. Team Gresini Racing Moto2 decided to opt for a wet-track set-up, a decision which in the end did not pay off.
Filip Salač started the race in eleventh place, four positions ahead of teammate Alessandro Zaccone. Both riders had a tough time getting up to speed as the track was drying up, as they crossed the line 14th and 15th, respectively, with Zaccone securing his first championship point in the series.
14th – FILIP SALAČ #12
“I had a hard time in the first race as I was struggling a lot with the front-end. Then a big crash happened which led to a red-flag situation: we weren’t sure about what track conditions we would have encountered so it was a big gamble. We chose to go with the set-up for wet conditions as there were some drops of rain already, but once on the grid we realised the track was dry. A day to forget overall, but we’ll make amends in Jerez.”
15th – ALESSANDRO ZACCONE #61
“It wasn’t an easy choice tyre-wise for the new start. With the wet tyres, we could have been on the podium had the rain intensified, but unfortunately the track dried immediately and we ended up fifteenth. We made a mistake and I’m sorry for that: we still scored the first world championship point but it wasn’t clearly the way I would have wanted to achieve this result. Now we go to Jerez, where we did well in testing, so we’ll start from that.”
