RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP faces uphill battle in Thailand despite strong qualifying performance
Zonta van den Goorbergh qualified 15th for the Thai Grand Prix on Saturday with teammate Barry Baltus finishing 26th at the Thai circuit. However, it will be a difficult race for the Dutch Grand Prix team as the Dutchman will have to start from pit lane on Sunday.
It was an eventful start to the Thai Grand Prix at the Chang International Circuit on Friday. Barry Baltus and Zonta van den Goorbergh ended the day in 20th and 23rd respectively but because the Dutchman was involved in an incident, he has to start Sunday afternoon’s race from the pit lane.
However, Van den Goorbergh came back strongly on Saturday by qualifying directly for Q2. In qualifying, he ended up with a 1’35.303 to set the fifteenth fastest time, just 0.575 seconds off pole position. Baltus had a much more difficult qualifying day at the Thai circuit where in Q1 he did not get beyond the twelfth position. With this, he qualified in 26th place but due to his teammate’s penalty, the Belgian will start from P25 on the grid.
Zonta van den Goorbergh – P15: “I’m glad we were able to go straight through to Q2 this morning. I had a good feeling straight away and from the first lap I was a few tenths per lap faster than yesterday. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the same in qualifying this afternoon, even though it certainly didn’t go badly. We finished fifteenth with just over half a second off pole position, so that’s not bad. We can be satisfied with today after what happened yesterday.”
Barry Baltus – P26: “This is not the result I wanted today. I’m disappointed as I didn’t perform well enough, the feeling with the bike and the track haven’t been great all weekend. I’m not fast enough at the moment but we’ll keep trying to find something for tomorrow, together with the team. We need to remain positive and see what we can do tomorrow. It will be difficult for sure, but we’ll definitely keep fighting.”
Jarno Janssen – RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP team manager: “The start of the day this morning was very good for both riders but after the first pit stop Barry unfortunately dropped back a little further. Zonta was able to maintain himself in the top fourteen though, allowing him to go straight into Q2. We were very happy with that, it was good that he was able to recover like that after what happened yesterday. Barry therefore had to take part in Q1 and that didn’t really go well at all. Nothing worked out and he didn’t have the right feeling to take the bike to the limit. He also missed the group with the faster guys to at least try something, in that respect it is a bit disappointing.
Zonta also struggled a bit in Q2 in the first run after which he was able to improve in the second run. However, with him we will have to start from pit lane tomorrow so we have to wait and see how the race develops from there. There’s always a chance of something happening in the form of a rain shower or a red flag so we have to wait and see what happens.”
The 22-lap Moto2 race at the Chang International Circuit will start on Sunday at 13:15 local time, 07:15 Central European Time. Please note that in the night from Saturday to Sunday, the clock will be set back one hour due to daylight savings.