RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP scores points again in Silverstone with 11th place for Van den Goorbergh, Baltus finishes 16th
Zonta van den Goorbergh finished 11th in the Moto2 race at Silverstone on Sunday afternoon. The Dutchman thus scored points again for the RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP team after some tough races. Barry Baltus also rode a strong race but was just unable to take points in 16th place.
After a somewhat disappointing qualifying session, expectations were still high for the Moto2 race at Silverstone. However, the first lap did not go well for both riders with Van den Goorbergh falling back to P18 from fifteenth on the grid and Baltus from nineteenth to P24. However, both riders then quickly made strides forward again as they possessed good pace.
Van den Goorbergh was in a group where there was a lot of fighting going on, but he held his own and managed to fight his way to the front. Eventually he crossed the finish line in eleventh place, scoring five world championship points which now puts him nineteenth in the championship. Baltus also had to fight his way to the front but at one point the gap to the group in front of him was too big. The Belgian eventually finished sixteenth, his best result since the US Grand Prix.
Zonta van den Goorbergh – P11: “With eleventh place as a result I am not unsatisfied in itself but I am not completely satisfied with race. Coming back from P19 to P11 is obviously good but there could have been something more. I didn’t really have a very good feeling with the bike yet which prevented me from pushing further forward. When I had a free track I could ride pretty fast but in a group I had a harder time. We’ll see why that happened. In the end, this was just a good race and we scored points again after a difficult race in Assen and a difficult race weekend in Germany. We can go home feeling satisfied.”
Barry Baltus – P16: “It wasn’t my best race ever but it wasn’t too bad either. We need to continue working in this direction as we were not too far this race. In the first two laps we lost a bit of time which meant there already was quite a big gap to the riders in front. After that our pace was not too bad. In the end we finished in P16 and I am a bit disappointed about that, after this difficult period it would have been nice to score a point. The team did a great job and I think we are on the right way.”
Jarno Janssen – RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP team manager: “It was a very good race by Zonta with 11th place in the end. It was unfortunate that he was nudged in the first corner and lost some time but in the end he recovered very well from that. Zonta rode strong lap times and just had a very good race, which means he scores five points. It was a solid weekend and that gives us a good feeling for the next race weekend.
For Barry it was a bit the same story as he lost some time in the first two laps. He had to come back from that and eventually finished sixteenth, unfortunately just short of a point. In any case, it gives prospects of better results and that is what we are working hard on at the moment. We go on to the next one in good spirits.”
The next Grand Prix will be held on the weekend of 16 to the 18th of August at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.