Mulhauser 17th in Australia, Lecuona crashes
A second win in a row, for the first time in his career - his fourteenth victory and another position in the provisional world championship classification, Thomas Lüthi (Garage Plus Interwetten) is now only 22 points behind the leader Johann Zarco from France after yet another extraordinary performance at Phillip Island. For the end of a weekend that was difficult for everyone - it rained a lot on Friday and Saturday - Tom and his technical team found the right solution for the race: "And the rider did what he needed to do," said Lüthi's experienced engineer Gilles Bigot, full of joy. Having started from pole position, Lüthi had the best start and led almost the entire race before he voluntarily opened the door for young Italian Franco Morbidelli to analyse his riding style and prepare his final attack. It was perfect, nerve wracking and tight, the No 12 rider crossed the line 10 milliseconds ahead of the blue machine of Morbidelli. Needless to say that the team managed by Frédéric Corminboeuf was ecstatic: "This victory is for the whole team. Tom had a fantastic race from the first until the last lap but I would also like to praise the work of his technicians, who never stopped working during the whole winter. Today we saw that our bike was impossible to overtake on the start-finish line... but that it was able to pass one of the best ones on the grid. So a special mention to those behind this. Iker made a lot of mistakes and finished by crashing hard in turn No 10; he had to go to the medical centre with bruises, especially in his lower back that he injured already before in the European Championship. But everything is ok. Robin had a difficult morning but was able to find his pace step by step to finish seventeenth."
They said...
Robin Mulhauser (carXpert Interwetten, 17th): "I have never felt very comfortable on this circuit of Phillip Island, I've often crashed here quite heavily. Today I had no feeling with the tyres that were too hard for me. I finished the race, which is important. Now we are concentrating on Malaysia and then Valencia. Once again hats off to my friend Tom Lüthi!"
Iker Lecuona (carXpert Interwetten, DNF): "The weekend was very difficult for me, on such a difficult track as this and with such little track time that we had in dry conditions. I was obviously hoping to do well in the race but I made too many mistakes before I crashed. Although my lower back is sore, I am ok. Sorry to the whole team and thanks for their incredible work."
