The Pons HP40 team has finally returned to victory! After a perfect weekend, Lorenzo Baldassarri logically went on to win, almost two years after his first and only success in Moto2. For his part, Héctor Barberá, although still far away, had the best weekend of his season.
Spread the word, Lorenzo Baldassarri is gaining momentum this year. After a very good second place in Qatar for the season opener, he then finished just off the podium in Argentina, before experiencing a more complicated race in Austin where he managed to save the points for tenth place.
The Italian driver started the weekend in Jerez with an eighth place in FP1, then a second place in FP2 on Friday. From Saturday, the machine was launched and it was impossible to bring him down from first place: he dominated FP3 before winning the first pole position of his career during qualifying in the afternoon, and a once again dominate the Warm Up on Sunday morning.
Following a good start, he spent the first lap in third position, before overtaking his opponents and setting his pace to win with almost three seconds ahead of the second place finisher. On arrival, the verdict was clear: “A very, very good weekend. I won again and it had been a long time since that happened. »
Indeed, Baldassarri won for the first time in his career at Misano in September 2016, and had not won a race since. But this weekend, he was truly above the rest: “We worked well from Friday and it showed with the pole position we obtained. We made the most of it while continuing to focus on the race, because it is the most important. I knew I had a good pace and, despite the lack of grip today, I managed to set my own pace and go on to win. »
As an Italian in a Spanish team, this victory in Spain is almost as good as the one won in Misano: “It's a lot of emotion to win in your team's country, to see all the sponsors who support us happy and celebrating. I can only say thank you to them and to the team. I am very happy. »
His teammate Héctor Barbera For his part, he always encounters difficulties. Returning from MotoGP this year, he had a complicated start to the season. Despite an encouraging thirteenth place in Qatar, he finished outside the points in Argentina and Austin with twentieth and eighteenth places.
This weekend in Jerez also started the same way, with a seventeenth position in the combined free practice times. The Spanish driver then achieved his best qualifying of the season by starting from fifteenth place. Unfortunately, it was impossible for him to recover, and he crossed the finish line in fourteenth position.
Very fair play, he absolutely wanted to say a word about Baldassarri's victory: “First of all, I would like to congratulate my teammate and the team. They did a good job all weekend and deserve it. As for us, we have progressed. What's a shame is that I lost a lot of time at the start, starting very far back on the grid, and in such a tight category, that's something you can't afford to do. »
Despite everything, Barberá continues to see the positive: “Despite this, there are positive things: we qualified better, and this is our best race. I repeat, the shame is that I could have fought for seventh or eighth place and taken two steps forward, but we only took one. We have to continue to be positive and take that step forward missing at Le Mans. »
