Best-ever 6th place in Moto2 for Baltus in British Grand Prix at Silverstone

Barry Baltus finished sixth in the Moto2 race at Silverstone on Sunday afternoon. After a good start, the Belgian managed to move into the leading group with the podium very near, eventually achieving his best result in the Moto2 class so far with sixth place. Zonta van den Goorbergh was unable to take advantage of his position on the front row of the grid and dropped back to 20^th place.

The Moto2 race was the last of the three Grand Prix classes on Sunday afternoon at Silverstone and with Zonta van den Goorbergh on the front row of the grid and Barry Baltus in eighth place on the grid, a good place to start for Fieten Olie Racing GP. Baltus got away well and was able to follow the pace of the riders in front while Van den Goorbergh soon had to give up ground.

As the race progressed Baltus moved up to fourth place and looked like he could be targeting a place on the rostrum. However, the pace of the top three was a little too fast and in the final lap Baltus had to give up a few positions, yet he came back strongly and the nineteen-year-old Belgian eventually crossed the finish line in sixth place. With that, Baltus achieved the best result so far for both himself and the Fieten Olie Racing GP team in the Moto2 class.

Van den Goorbergh struggled with the hot pace at the front and soon fell back in the opening stages. The seventeen-year-old Dutchman was still close to his first world championship point for a long time but it did not come in the end as he crossed the finish line in twentieth. Regardless, it was a strong weekend from Van den Goorbergh and the team and many lessons were learned that will come in handy in the future.

Barry Baltus – P6: “Today I had a good race, I didn’t expect this before the start. I started well and was immediately within the front group. It felt like a relatively easy race for me because, although the rhythm was fast, it didn’t feel like it was very hard to keep this rhythm. After Alonso López crashed in front of me I tried to just finish the race and not make a mistake like I have done before, I just wanted to finish. In the last lap I lost two positions but managed to get one back so in the end it was a good race. After a difficult Friday it feels good to achieve this result. Now we will have a test tomorrow and we will try a couple of things on the bike, then we focus on Austria.”

Zonta van den Goorbergh – P20: “After yesterday’s great qualifying result, this is obviously not where I want to be. It wasn’t good today, it’s as simple as that. Tomorrow we will have a day of testing and try to make some improvements. Hopefully then we can come out a little stronger in Austria.”

Jarno Jansen – Fieten Olie Racing GP team manager: “”It was a Grand Prix weekend we won’t forget soon. After the tricky start on Friday we knew it would be a difficult weekend but both riders performed great in qualifying on Saturday with a third place for Zonta and an eighth for Barry.

That made things look a lot rosier but we didn’t get ahead of ourselves, knowing that in dry conditions it would be a tough race for both riders. Barry’s performance today was very impressive and better than we expected. He was able to keep up with the fastest riders and handled the pace well. Unfortunately he just couldn’t make that last step but with his and our best result in the Moto2 class we can’t be dissatisfied. We need to continue in this way and hopefully we can then continue to improve on our best result in the next races.

In Zonta’s case, we knew it was going to be a very tough task but we had hoped he could hang on a little longer. Anyway, it has been a very instructive weekend for him and we have to take that into the next Grand Prix weekends. Tomorrow we are testing for a day here at Silverstone and then we can try some things that we don’t have time for during a GP. Hopefully that will bring something we can benefit from in the next GPs.”

The Fieten Olie Racing GP team will participate in the official one-day IRTA test at Silverstone on Monday after which the next Grand Prix is scheduled for the weekend of August 18-20 at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.