TITO RABAT IN THE PODIUM FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS SEASON AFTER FINISHING THIRD IN THE GRAND PRIX OF THE CHECK REPUBLIC. YONNY HERNÁNDEZ AND MASHEL AL NAIMI END IN THE TOP 30
Brno, 15th August 2010. The Moto2 race of the Check Republic Grand Prix, ninth round of the World Championship, has started with a small delay caused by the 125cc hold-up. In the intermediate category, the riders of the team Blusens-STX have finished 23rd and 30th. Yonny Hernández (23rd) has started well, gaining 8 positions and fighting for the top 20 against five or six rivals, but he could not maintain a good rhythm. He was 23rd for a while, but after a few laps he descended until the 28th place. Four laps before the end he managed to be 22nd after doing a fast lap. However, Redding has passed him and he has finished 23rd, a result that breaks the good patch of three GP in a row scoring points. Therefore, he has lost one position in the championship standing being 19th now, although just 4 points away from the 15th. His team mate Mashel Al Naimi has hold a beautiful battle with Cardús, Debise, Olivé and Canepa for the top 30 and he has finally succeed thanks to the last two laps, when he has done his fastest lap twice. The rider from Doha has gotten his third best result of the season after quitting the race in Germany before the summer break.
The 125cc race has started a little late because it has been declared wet right before the start and after the warm up. Tito Rabat has done a fantastic start and very soon he has joined the first group. Ten laps before the end the rider of Blusens-STX has left Jonas Folger behind, who was fourth, and he has gone straight for Efrén Vázquez and Pol Espargaró to fight for the podium, since his rhythm was half a second faster than the one of his competitors of team Tuenti. Five laps later he has reached them and has greatly passed the rider from Rekalde in the inside of a curve. He has placed himself third and has kept this position until the end. It was the second time Tito ends third this season, and the third time in his career. With the 16 points he has marked in Brno, Rabat has gone up two positions in the general ranking and is now sixth with 79 points in total (five away from the fifth, Tomoyoshi Koyama).
68 YONNY HERNÁNDEZ (23º. 42’38.161, +46.446): “I think we have paid for yesterday’s crash because it did not let us try everything we wanted. Despite of that, today we decided to risk a little and change the development of the motorbike, but it did not work out. We changed the setting, bad idea, which has made the bike lose strength. In the practice I was doing 2’05 mid-high and today we could not even get close to this times. The best I have done today is 2’06 high. It was hard to follow the group because the bike was leaving the chicanes with weakness and this forced me to push it, so the tyres were suffering too. In spite of that the battle has been nice, my hand was fine and the bandage of the finger was working, so in the last laps I could win some positions. However, I wanted more because I took points in the last three races and I expected this to be my fourth. Anyway, it is useless to complain; now I must start to think about Indiannapolis and how to improve my performance.”
95 MASHEL AL NAIMI (30º. 42’44.866, +53.151): “I think that from now on everything will be different. I did a quite interesting race and my rhythm was getting better during the 20 laps. I did my best time, 2’06.6, two laps before the end, and I was only half a second away from my times in the qualifying session. Thus, I am really happy with my performance. I had almost the same times than my team mate in Blusens-STX and this is truly positive. Moreover, the race was fun, battling in a group of three or four riders passing each other all the time. Plus I felt really comfortable with the bike. This is my third top 30 of the season and my goal is to stay between the 30 best riders for the rest of the year”.
12 TITO RABAT (3º. 44’09.858, +20.555): “I am really happy with my podium and the great race I did. I started in the back and won many positions, keeping the head cold despite of the problems the track was presenting. I got the second podium of the season which is a fantastic result for us. I started in the back because I crashed in the practice, but I managed to stick with the first group. This circuit was difficult for me until now. I suffered in the last laps because the bike was slippery, so when I was already third I had to look for wet areas to make the tyre colder. While I was doing that Efrén hit me from behind, but luckily I did not fall. I apologised, but he crashed in the next bend and I realized the podium was mine. I then though about going after Pol, but I chose not to risk too much in order to keep that position. I want to thank my mechanics and technicians because without their magnificent job and support this would not be possible, so this podium is also theirs. I would like to dedicate it to Raúl and the sponsors, because they let me be here. After these results (fourth in Germany and third in Brno), I am extremely excited and I face this second part of the season with more ambition and the objective of finishing in the top five at the world championship standing.”
