Motul Grand Prix of Japan | Barry P14 | Zonta P16

Barry Baltus – P14:
“It wasn’t our best race of the season today. We started from P10 and ended in P14, therefore I’m a bit disappointed. I missed something in the first couple of laps and then the group was already gone. We scored two more points, which is good, but we need to improve more. I’m sure it will come soon. Hopefully we will do it next week and decrease the gap to the front further, I’m looking forward to go to Buriram.”

 

Zonta van den Goorbergh – P16:
“Today didn’t start very well because on a dry track in the warm-up session we had some problems with the brakes. That stopped us from pushing and that was very unfortunate because it was only the second dry session of the weekend, so I went into the race not very confident. The start wasn’t even very bad but I lost a lot of time because I was pushed wide in Turn 1. Then I braked at the point where I braked during the warm-up but that was way too early so I lost more places.

After that, I was able to set a good pace and got faster and faster. Looking at the lap times I did then, I was losing less than a second a lap on the top four so that was fine. Because of the lack of confidence we gave it away in the beginning, now we will focus on Thailand.”

 

Jarno Janssen – RW Racing GP teammanager:
“It certainly wasn’t an easy race today but we knew yesterday that that would be the case. Barry had some problems yesterday but he did a very good warm-up, which gave him the confidence for the race. Unfortunately, he had bad luck in the first corner and was pushed wide by another rider which cost him four places. In the end, he rode a solid race and fought to the end, that’s why he definitely deserved the points. That’s important for him and for us.

Zonta had a very good race in which he managed to set very good lap times until the end. He ended up finishing only about seven seconds behind Barry, which is very good. He has made a big step, it’s a pity we just couldn’t get that last point. Sixteenth place is good anyway and we are very happy with it.”

 

fotocredits: Rafa Marrodán