If the rest of the season is going to be anything like tonight, then fans had better get ready for the of adrenaline from the premier class. Of the three races held in Losail, the most exciting was the MotoGP contest. Jorge Lorenzo won the race after breaking away early, taking victory with an advantage of some six seconds. Behind him an exciting battle between Pedrosa, Marquez and Crutchlow emerged, until Rossi joined the party and muscled his way through the group to finish second. He had to hold off Marquez at the end in a great duel between veteran and debutant.
They know one another perfectly, they spend hours travelling together and they are teammates –and rivals. Last season they were the top and second top CRT riders in MotoGP. POWER ELECTRONICS Aspar riders Aleix Espargaró and Randy De Puniet were back for another season together, competing to be the best CRT rider of the night in Qatar. Espargaró took charge in the duel, with a move that put Spies in between the two, although De Puniet stuck behind the American and regained ground. In the end, an airbox issue for De Puniet with eight laps remaining stopped him from engaging in a straight fight with his teammate, who concluded the race in eleventh.
11th Aleix Espargaró:
"Obviously we always want more, and we've been left wanting more tonight. We were hoping to fight against some of the MotoGP riders. The thing that made that so tough was that we CRT riders lose a lot of distance on the straight and have to take risks on the corners. I took advantage of a mistake by Spies to pass him, then I pushed like crazy and I held on for a bit, but eventually he overtook me again at the end of the straight. Realistically, we have to be satisfied with our result. We have every reason to be very happy, at a circuit as long as this, with a finish just 49 seconds behind the winner. It is quite an achievement. Clearly, we have taken a huge step up from last season. We could not have started better here, and I am particularly pleased that we have solved a lot of our chattering problems. We leave here as leaders of the CRT standings, so it was ‘job done’."
12th Randy De Puniet:
"If on Thursday, after the first practice session, I had been told that I would end the weekend as well as I did, then I would have been happy. Throughout the weekend, mainly yesterday, we improved our confidence issues with the front end. Today I had a good feeling during the first three parts of the race, I could stick with my teammate Aleix and, although he escaped slightly, I could reel him back in. However, with eight laps to go I started having problems with the left handers, as I just couldn’t turn into them. Later, with eight laps to go, I started to have chatter problems and lost almost two seconds per lap. It seemed like the air intake had come unstuck, which impeded me from turning the bars and led to a lot of bouncing. It’s a shame, as I could have stayed with Aleix throughout if not. We have to think positive -at least I was able to complete the race and was also the second best CRT rider. Despite this setback, we had a very consistent race."
Power Electronics Aspar Press Release
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