Assen, Netherlands: Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) Racing Team rider Anthony West rode to a strong 10th place at the Dutch Moto2 race, fighting off his direct opponents Julian Simon and Randy Krummenacher to cross the line 16 seconds behind race winner Pol Espargaro.
Starting from the second row of the grid, the 31-year-old Australian had expected an even better result, but ran into front end problems halfway through the race and wasn’t able to quite match the speed of the riders in front of him any more.
But even though he was not entirely satisfied with the race result, West was still happy with the progress on the set-up of his Speed Up prototype and is confident of more good results to come in the next races.
West said: “It wasn’t a good race for me because I feel embarrassed to go backwards from sixth! I felt good on the bike and my lap times were fast, but I didn’t get a good run and was sort of battling to pass a lot of the guys. I felt faster than them, but I struggled to try to overtake them. Mid-way through the race, I lost the good feeling for the bike and dropped off a bit.”
The Australian rider added: “I kept going backwards and wasn’t able to continue with the strong lap times, which is a bit strange. I expected to be more consistent, but it didn’t work out that way because I lost feeling with the front. I had lost the front a few times on the first laps, which was really strange, so I didn’t trust it. As soon as you don’t trust the front that little bit, everything becomes harder.”
West said he is satisfied with his overall performance. He said: “I am not really happy with the race, I expected more out of it. But other than the 10th place, we can be satisfied with the weekend. Hopefully, we can improve from now on. The bike seems to be working reasonably well and we seem to be working in the right direction. We were better here than the races before, so I think we can be pretty strong from now on.”
Meanwhile, West’s team-mate Rafid Topan Sucipto, who had suffered multiple bruises in a practice crash on Friday morning, grit his teeth and rode through the pain barrier to complete the full race distance and to award himself and his team with a safe finish in 28th position.
Sucipto said: “After my crash yesterday, I was in a lot of pain. I didn’t have a good night, I kept waking up because of my bruises and I also struggled in the race for this reason.”
He added: “It was a tough day, but I am glad that I was able to finish the race and to see the chequered flag. My plan for the next races is to change my attitude and to be relaxed and calm. I put myself under a lot of pressure again in the race today, which is not the key to success.”
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