Bo just outside the points after first corner hickup

Bo Bendsneyder just missed out of points by 0.051 while her interim team mate Jesko Raffin took home 2 points from the opening race of the season. Already in the first turn of the VisitQatar Grand Prix Bendsneyder had to pull out all the stops to avoid three crashing bikes just in front of her. Starting from eighteenth Bendsneyder almost got caught up by the crashing bikes of Iker Lecuona, Nicolo Bulega and Jorge Navarro just in front of her. The manoeuvre in the openings stages of the Moto2 race in Qatar cost the Dutch rider of NTS RW Racing GP ten positions. Her Swiss teammate could pass the mayhem from the other side moving up in an instant. From the back of the pack Bendsneyder began working to make up lost ground. In lap 3 already she had moved up to twentieth and by lap 7 she was in seventeenth. By that time Raffin was fighting for fourteenth. Bendsneyder had to close a gap of almost 3 seconds when she got into sixteenth by lap 14. She managed in the final lap when she passed Jorge Martin for fifteenth, but in the final turns the Moto3 champion just got passed Bendsneyder again to grab the last point by a margin of just 0.051. The fourteenth and sixteenth place show that NTS RW Racing GP can look forward to the upcoming races with confidence, emphasizes RW Racing GP team manager Jarno Janssen. “Of course I am very happy with the two points for Jesko. She had a super race in which she could keep fighting until the end. Hats off, especially because she came in without any preparation on a new machine for her in a strange team and yet she managed to catch those points. We hope that Steven Odendaal will be back in Argentina in three weeks, but with such a replacement I can only be very satisfied.” There was disappointment about the sixteenth place of Bo Bendsneyder, but not about the race that the Dutchman made. “Bo had to start from the back due to someone else’s brash action. In this competitive field that is an almost impossible task, but she has fought her way back in the race. That she just missed the points is a shame. She has done lap times that are top 10-worthy.”

Bo Bendsneyder: “Losing the race in the first corner is a shame, but I’m glad I finished and that I could fight for the points. In the last six laps I had such a burden of arm pump that I could barely take the brakes. I tried everything to get that last point, but it just didn’t work. We did show that the top 10 would have been possible.”

Race results:

Pos Rider Team Time / Gap
1 Lorenzo BALDASSARRI Flexbox HP 40 39’56.109
2 Thomas LUTHI Dynavolt Intact GP 0,026
3 Marcel SCHROTTER Dynavolt Intact GP 2.123
4 Remy GARDNER ONEXOX TKKR SAG Team 2.125
5 Augusto FERNANDEZ Flexbox HP 40 2.305
6 Sam LOWES Federal Oil Gresini Moto2 3.334
7 Alex MARQUEZ EG 0,0 Marc VDS 5.018
8 Luca MARINI SKY Racing Team VR46 7.336
9 Enea BASTIANINI Italtrans Racing Team 12.949
10 Xavi VIERGE EG 0,0 Marc VDS 13.865
11 Fabio DI GIANNANTONIO +Ego Speed Up 15.525
12 Brad BINDER Red Bull KTM Ajo 16.591
13 Andrea LOCATELLI Italtrans Racing Team 18.667
14 Jesko RAFFIN NTS RW Racing GP 18.916
15 Jorge MARTIN Red Bull KTM Ajo 22.771
16 Bo BENDSNEYDER NTS RW Racing GP 22.822
17 Khairul Idham PAWI Petronas Sprinta Racing 23.978
18 Dominique AEGERTER MV Agusta Idealavoro Forward 26.904
19 Simone CORSI Tasca Racing Scuderia Moto2 27.030
20 Stefano MANZI MV Agusta Idealavoro Forward 40.274
21 Lukas TULOVIC Kiefer Racing 43.003
22 Joe ROBERTS American Racing KTM 44.212
23 Philipp OETTL Red Bull KTM Tech 3 47.657
24 Dimas EKKY PRATAMA IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia 57.596
25 Xavi CARDELUS Sama Qatar Angel Nieto Team +1’18.749
26 Marco BEZZECCHI Red Bull KTM Tech 3 +1’35.817
Not Classified
Tetsuta NAGASHIMA ONEXOX TKKR SAG Team 18 Laps
Jake DIXON Sama Qatar Angel Nieto Team 18 Laps
Somkiat CHANTRA IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia 19 Laps
Not Finished 1st Lap
Jorge NAVARRO +Ego Speed Up 0 Lap
Nicolo BULEGA SKY Racing Team VR46 0 Lap
Iker LECUONA American Racing KTM 0 Lap

Source: motogp.com, rwracinggp.com

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