Aegerter: One point better than nothing. Mulhauser: a solid race.

This is the reward for hard work, a first podium (third position) on a Kalex for one of the three riders of the Swiss "dream team": after a spectacular race, with a several dramatic moments - a crash of two of the big candidates, Sam Lowes and Tito Rabat, a technical issue of the race leader Johann Zarco -, Thomas Lüthi finished third. He grabbed his position with three laps remaining and managed to resist the attack of a young Spaniard Alex Rins until the final meters of the race. This meant a first podium in the first race of the history of the team Derendinger Racing Interwetten, to the greatest pleasure of Frédéric Corminboeuf, the head of CGBM Evolution, the structure that aligns Lüthi and the two Technomag Racing Interwetten riders, Dominique Aegerter and Robin Mulhauser: "I will be leaving Qatar with positive feelings for our three guys. But attention, we have to stay alert, we still have a lot of work to do as many things happened today - crashes and technical issues of the biggest candidates for the victory - that gave us the opportunity to celebrate our first podium thanks to Tom. This is an incredible award for the whole team. Dominique cannot of course be happy with a fifteenth position but we saw a good reaction from him after difficult practice sessions. The next Grand Prix will take place in Texas, where he is always comfortable and this can be a positive psychological trigger. And Robin, he rode on a regular pace with a clear progress compared to practice. Unfortunately he did not make up for the wasted first day." The whole team will travel to Europe on Sunday night and will meet again in two weeks on the other side of the Atlantic.

And they said...

Dominique Aegerter (Technomag Racing Interwetten, 15th): "I have one point more than the two riders who were proclaimed the hottest championship contenders and one point more than last year at this time! Now more seriously, we continue our research and our work. In the afternoon's warm-up we made a step forward because I improved my personal best from qualifying by 6 tenths of a second. What we tried in the race has not given us a lot so far. I am obviously not where I want to be, I don't have the right amount of confidence to free myself completely on the bike, however, I could feel some progress at the end of each day. The team does an incredible job and we saw that Tom was on the podium with the same material that I have at my disposal so I hope that it will be my turn soon."

Robin Mulhauser (Technomag Racing Interwetten, 20th): "My personal objective is to finish between tenth to twentieth position in every race and in the points as many times as possible, of course. I only just fitted in this time, although I know that there were some retirements ahead of me. Despite all, I am happy with my race; I was consistently one second quicker than in practice and the risk we decided to take with my chief technician Didier Langouët - a harder set-up of the rear of the bike - paid off. My shoulder handled the shock and after a difficult start to the week - technical issues in the first two free practice sessions - we found a way out."