No points for RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP after disappointing Moto2 race in Austin
The RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP team failed to score any points in Sunday’s Moto2 race at the Circuit of The Americas. In the 16-lap Grand Prix, Barry Baltus crossed the line in 16th place while Zonta van den Goorbergh had to end his race early.
After qualifying on Saturday left mixed feelings with a twelfth starting place for Barry Baltus and a 24th for Zonta van den Goorbergh, there was still hope that both riders could get a good result out of it on Sunday.
Baltus dropped back to 13th position after the start but then fought hard in the group battling for the top ten. The Belgian rider came back to twelfth place but would fall back to 16th position in the closing stages, preventing him from adding any points to his tally. With a total of 23, Baltus is ninth in the championship.
Starting from 24th on the grid, Van den Goorbergh soon moved up into the top 20 but then had to surrender several more places. At the end of the seventh lap, the eighteen-year-old Dutchman had to abandon his race, meaning he too could not take any points back to Europe. He is currently 16th in the standings with three points.
Barry Baltus – P16: “This race was completely different than I expected. I thought we could me much further forward but that wasn’t the case so I am very disappointed. We have to find out why I dropped back in the end of the race and learn from it for the next race. It was strange because I didn’t have a good feeling from the first lap onwards. We will analyse what happened and look forward to the next one.”
Zonta van den Goorbergh – DNF: “We faced a technical problem pretty soon which meant I couldn’t run the race I had envisaged. It’s very disappointing because despite my starting position I definitely had the possibility to move forward. Unfortunately it is what it is and we will have to work together to be stronger again at Jerez.”
Jarno Janssen – RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP team manager: “It was a very tough day for us with both Barry and Zonta. We didn’t expect not to take home any points here but we did in the end, especially as we were so strong here last year. Today we had a lot of difficulties and they are hard to trace. If you are not at 100% in the Moto2 class then you’re just not able to compete. We have to learn from what happened and look ahead to the next one. That goes for both Barry where we were hoping for a top eight finish and Zonta who didn’t have the speed today. It is a disappointing end to this weekend and we will have to work very hard in the coming weeks and races to be better. Now we set our sights on Jerez.”
The next Grand Prix will take place the weekend of 26-28 April at the Circuito de Jerez – Ángel Nieto in Spain.