Van den Goorbergh and Baltus gather experience but no points in wet Argentine Grand Prix

Zonta van den Goorbergh and Barry Baltus finished 18th and 19th respectively in a wet Argentine Moto2 race on Sunday. In a shortened race, both riders got off to a difficult start which cost them a finish in the points despite a good final part of the race.

Van den Goorbergh held his 20th position in the opening phase of the race which saw him lose touch with the riders in front of him. In the second half of the race, the 17-year-old Dutchman managed to pick up the pace before eventually crossing the finish line in 18th place thanks to two overtakes on the final lap.

Baltus immediately lost several positions in the opening phase but manifested himself in the top fifteen. In the closing stages the Belgian dropped further back, eventually crossing the finish line in nineteenth place, just behind his teammate.

Zonta van den Goorbergh – P18: “I am pretty satisfied with today’s race. The pace was too slow in the beginning of the race and I didn’t have a good feeling with the bike. Our race was shortened to 14 laps so once I found the pace it was already too late. That was very unfortunate because I felt very strong at the end of the race, in the last lap I managed to make two more overtakes. That’s a shame but we can now take the experience in the rain to next time. Now we go home and then in two weeks we will see how it goes in the United States.”

Barry Baltus – P19: “The race today didn’t go as planned. After a good Friday and Saturday the conditions were very difficult on Sunday. It was not dry but also not fully wet, therefore I didn’t get any feeling with the bike. I was not fast and we need to forget this race, we know we can be strong so now we look towards the next race.”

Jarno Janssen – Fieten Olie Racing GP team manager: “This was not the result we had hoped for this weekend. We went through some things this weekend and in a wet race the expectation was that both riders would be strong, unfortunately that expectation did not come true.

Zonta had a very good last part of the race but because he got going a bit late he had a big gap to the riders in front of him. That is all part of the learning process, it was good to see he was very strong in the last few laps.

Barry didn’t get going today and that’s a real shame after we were in good shape on Friday and Saturday. Normally Barry is very strong in these kind of conditions but now the feeling with the bike was not there. Then it shows that you fall short at this level and don’t compete for the points, that was the reality today.

I think we learned a lot this weekend, we all have to look each other straight in the eye now and ask ourselves what went right and what didn’t. Now it’s time to recharge the batteries and then we go to Texas in two weeks’ time.”

The Fieten Olie Racing GP team now returns home from South America to fly to North America in just over a week. The US Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas is scheduled for the weekend of 14-16 April.