Team San Carlo Honda Gresini Moto3 youngster Niccolo Antonelli makes his third appearance in the Moto3 World Championship this weekend on the back of a positive outing at Jerez, where he debuted an FTR chassis in his Honda NSF250R and picked up his first points. A rookie mistake in qualifying meant that the teenager was forced to battle back for positions in the race from fifth on the grid, leaving him with the bittersweet feeling that his eighth place finish could have been even better. Now he will look to put that disappointment behind him with an improved showing at Estoril.
Niccolo’ Antonelli
“If it wasn't for my mistake in qualifying I could have had a better grid position and a better race as a result so I am annoyed about that but happy with my performance level and potential. I am happy to be heading back on to the track so soon and I hope I can learn Estoril quickly, having only seen it previously on the television, so that we can work on the set-up of the bike. I need a bit more confidence but I am sure with the help of the team we can find that in Portugal. It would be nice for me to be up there fighting with my friend Fenati, who has made incredible progress, and I hope I can prove Dani Pedrosa right after the kind comments he made about me in the press.”
Fausto Gresini
“Niccolò had a good race at Jerez and rode sensibly in difficult conditions to pick up some important first points. It was the first time he was using the new chassis and apart from the qualifying mistake when he should have come in to change his wet tyres for slicks I thought it was a positive weekend. He was still annoyed with himself at the end of the race and I understand why but he has huge potential to improve and the objective is to do that from race to race. At Estoril we want to do better than Jerez and it will be an important experience for him to gather more kilometres and get more comfortable on the bike. ”
