Changing weather conditions again played a leading role in Le Mans, with a slowly drying track at the start of the Moto2 race. The difficult conditions had their effect on Bo Bendsneyder and Piotr Biesiekirski too, especially in the opening stages of the French Grand Prix. Bendsneyder eventually finished in 20th, Biesiekirski in 22nd. As the sun came out shortly after the MotoGP race, when the Moto2 riders were on the grid, the track in Le Mans was slowly drying, leaving the whole pack with the same question: wet tires or slicks? Everybody choose the slick tire, but there wasn’t too much time to change the settings of the bikes to dry set-up as well. On top of that there was only a thin dry line, making overtaking a big risk at the start of the race. Bo Bendsneyder had a very promising warmup-session in the morning, finishing in 16th, but that didn’t help much in the damp circumstances. He didn’t have the best of starts, but managed to keep his position at the end of the first lap. The Dutchman needed some time to find confidence and rhythm in the damp conditions, but once he found that, he could close in and pick up the battle with Bulega, Nagashima and Navarro. Overtaking Nagashima cost him a lot of time and effort, and this gave Pons and Dalla Porta the change to overtake the pair of them, costing Bendsneyder more than he eventually gained. It left him finishing in 20th at 1.12.930 from race winner Lowes. Piotr Biesiekirski was a bit too eager to get the party started and made a jump start, which was punished immediately with a double long lap penalty, leaving the young Pole far behind. He even was lapped by the leaders by the end of the race, but still managed to finish, although at one lap behind.
Bo Bendsneyder: “It was a very difficult race with these conditions. With only a thin dry line I didn’t have enough confidence and grip to overtake, but as the race wore on, I started feeling better and more confident and the pace went up. I tried to overtake Nagashima four times, but each time I tried I almost lost the front and ran wide on the wet track. I had to catch up and start over again. In one of those occasions unfortunately I left the door open for Pons and Dalla Porta to pass through. Only in the end I managed to catch Nagashima. Such a pity. We now put sight on Aragon, hoping for a bit more consistent weather conditions.”
Race results:
Pos | Rider | Team | Time / Gap |
1 | Sam LOWES | EG 0,0 Marc VDS | 41’27.648 |
2 | Remy GARDNER | Onexox TKKR SAG Team | 3.822 |
3 | Marco BEZZECCHI | SKY Racing Team VR46 | 4.184 |
4 | Augusto FERNANDEZ | EG 0,0 Marc VDS | 5.884 |
5 | Thomas LUTHI | Liqui Moly Intact GP | 21.668 |
6 | Joe ROBERTS | Tennor American Racing | 29.197 |
7 | Fabio DI GIANNANTONIO | Termozeta Speed Up | 32.249 |
8 | Lorenzo BALDASSARRI | Flexbox HP 40 | 34.376 |
9 | Somkiat CHANTRA | IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia | 35.392 |
10 | Marcel SCHROTTER | Liqui Moly Intact GP | 35.521 |
11 | Enea BASTIANINI | Italtrans Racing Team | 37.720 |
12 | Hector GARZO | Flexbox HP 40 | 37.910 |
13 | Marcos RAMIREZ | Tennor American Racing | 38.423 |
14 | Stefano MANZI | MV Agusta Forward Racing | 43.464 |
15 | Hafizh SYAHRIN | Inde Aspar Team Moto2 | 44.036 |
16 | Simone CORSI | MV Agusta Forward Racing | 44.217 |
17 | Luca MARINI | SKY Racing Team VR46 | 59.550 |
18 | Lorenzo DALLA PORTA | Italtrans Racing Team | +1’09.735 |
19 | Edgar PONS | Federal Oil Gresini Moto2 | +1’09.751 |
20 | Bo BENDSNEYDER | NTS RW Racing GP | +1’12.930 |
21 | Tetsuta NAGASHIMA | Red Bull KTM Ajo | +1’14.158 |
22 | Piotr BIESIEKIRSKI | NTS RW Racing GP | 1 Lap |
Kasma DANIEL | Onexox TKKR SAG Team | 0 Lap | |
Not Classified | |||
Jake DIXON | Petronas Sprinta Racing | 5 Laps | |
Jorge NAVARRO | Termozeta Speed Up | 7 Laps | |
Nicolò BULEGA | Federal Oil Gresini Moto2 | 10 Laps | |
Andi Farid IZDIHAR | IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia | 20 Laps | |
Xavi VIERGE | Petronas Sprinta Racing | 21 Laps | |
Jorge MARTIN | Red Bull KTM Ajo | 23 Laps |
Source: motogp.com, rwracinggp.com