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