Baltus salvages three points for RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP, Van den Goorbergh finishes 19th in challenging Portuguese Grand Prix
Barry Baltus finished 13th in the Moto2 race at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve on Sunday afternoon. The Belgian rider came from 16th on the grid and eventually managed to score three world championship points for RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP. Zonta van den Goorbergh had a difficult race and finished nineteenth.
RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP had a challenging and insightful in Portugal. Despite Barry Baltus and Zonta van den Goorbergh showing the speed during practice and qualifying, it did not come out at the right time and the Belgian and Dutchman had to start from sixteenth and nineteenth positions respectively.
Baltus still managed to come forward strongly in the early stages of the race and was close to the top ten. In the end, the nineteen-year-old rider finished ten seconds off the winner but in the competitive Moto2 field it meant a thirteenth place, adding three points to his total.
Van den Goorbergh also made up positions in the opening stages of the race and was not far away from the points. In the closing stages, the eighteen-year-old Dutchman dropped back slightly and crossed the finish line in nineteenth place, preventing him from adding any points to his tally.
Barry Baltus – P13: “It was not such a great race today, we already had to start from quite far behind. The rhythm was not too bad but I didn’t feel strong, however I managed to finish and take three points home. It’s not exactly the result we hoped for but it’s better than nothing. We need to analyse and understand what the problems were this weekend and then focus on the next one in a few weeks’ time.”
Zonta van den Goorbergh – P19: “We leave Portugal without points and I certainly didn’t expect that prior to the weekend. We did gather a lot of useful information for the future and learnt some lessons. It was a very difficult race and I couldn’t get into a rhythm, I couldn’t ride the way I wanted to. As a result, it became an increasingly difficult story in the race and that is a bitter pill to swallow for now. Now it’s time to train even harder and get ready for the race in the United States where we want to compete again for the positions we know we can be in.”
Jarno Janssen – RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP team manager: “The first race weekend in Europe is behind us and I think we had quite a difficult time at certain moments. It started with Barry’s crash on Friday and then you do miss out on the track time you need during a race weekend to really find that perfect set-up. In the end, I think we limited the damage and managed to get the most out of it. When you have to come from sixteenth place it becomes a difficult story anyway. We took away valuable points and move on to the next one with our heads held high.
Zonta had a very difficult time in the race and could not ride completely free, as a result he did not manage to get the maximum out of it. That too is a learning moment and you can’t always have things your way. We have to move on and will already be back at it in Austin in a couple of weeks. That’s a circuit where both riders have performed well in the past so let’s put our focus on that weekend now.”
The Grand Prix of the United States at the Circuit of the Americas will be held on the weekend of 12-14 April.