Lecuona crashed but was running in points, hard times for Mulhauser
Finishing sixth in the Moto2 Grand Prix of San Marino & della Riviera de Rimini, Thomas Lüthi (Garage Plus Interwetten) moved up by one position in the provisional overall world championship classification to a third position with five races remaining this season. Lüthi made a good start from sixth on the grid into a solid first half of the race, before he had to fight really hard with his adversaries in tricky grip conditions. The Swiss rider also just avoided a crash on a few occasions. Iker Lecuona, 16-years old since January, who is replacing injured Dominique Aegerter (carXpert Interwetten), was running in fourteenth position before he crashed and managed to get back into the race to finish his second ever Grand Prix in 21st position behind his teammate Robin Mulhauser, who has been struggling the whole weekend. Frédéric Corminboeuf, the boss of the Swiss team, sums up the day: “The good news is that we are back in third position in the provisional standings with five races ahead of us where Tom will be comfortable. We were looking for an ideal solution the whole weekend but we did not find it; the bike was “nervous” and Tom gave it everything. The first half of the race was simply exceptional for Iker: he was in fourteenth position when he crashed, he joined the group fighting for twelfth position. Robin’s weekend had the usual scenario: he showed some interesting things two or three times – especially his last laps in the race - but it was too late to transform it into a solid base and to give him his confidence back.”
They said…
Robin Mulhauser (carXpert Interwetten, 20th): “The race was just like the rest of the weekend, very difficult. I never felt good on the bike, I gave it everything but I received nothing. What’s next? I will keep working hard, the next race is Aragon, where I did my first Grand Prix, I like the track and I need to enjoy riding again.”
Iker Lecuona (carXpert Interwetten, 21st): “I lost quite a lot of time on the first two laps because people crashed in front of me. After that I was in a good group and was able to start overtaking people. I wasn’t far behind Schrötter and Vierge when I lost the front; I wanted to go back out immediately but the track marshals did not agree with me because there were rocks everywhere inside the bike. I was eventually able to re-join, I really wanted to finish the race to thank those who believed in me in the last two weeks.”
