The CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar Team has also secured the Moto3 team world championship title at the Lusail circuit
Máximo Quiles secured his seventeenth podium finish of the season in his most challenging race yet. The CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar Team rider finished third in Qatar after battling for second place right up to the final metres with Adrián Fernández, who finished second today. David Almansa set a pace that proved impossible for the rest of the riders to match and took the win at Lusail. Marco Morelli finished in fifteenth place, a result that does not reflect the Argentine’s strong performance, particularly in the second half of the race. This weekend, the CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar Team was also crowned world team champions for the third time in the last five years.
The CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar Team leaves Qatar with valuable lessons learnt for Máximo Quiles and Marco Morelli. The Moto3 world champion had to give it his all to try and keep up with David Almansa’s pace right from the opening laps. The Spaniard lost a few places in the early laps but quickly recovered to hold second place until almost the end of the race. Quiles did not feel comfortable this Sunday – something quite unusual this season – although he never gave up and fought right to the end. After losing second place in the final laps, the CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar Team rider still found that extra bit of pace in the closing metres, crossing the finish line in third place, 65 thousandths behind the runner-up. With this result, Quiles has now racked up 17 podium finishes in a single season, although he will no longer be able to match David Alonso as the rider with the most Moto3 victories in a single year. Meanwhile, Marco Morelli was able to take some very positive takeaways from Qatar. The Argentine had to fight his way up from the sixth row of the grid and dropped as far as twenty-second place after the lights went out, but in the second half of the race he climbed back up to fifteenth place, which was his final position. Beyond the result, the most notable aspect of his performance was the rider’s excellent pace; he managed to close the gap to the leader by as much as three seconds in just a few laps and even lapped faster than the riders at the front. The CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar Team rider rediscovered his form in a very challenging race, from which he was also able to draw some very positive conclusions.
3rd Máximo Quiles (+2.585): “I tried to get off to a good start and moved into second place, but I was overtaken straight afterwards. At the first braking point, the steering locked up and I thought, ‘Something’s not right here’. From that moment on, it affected me for the rest of the race. It was the race I enjoyed the least; I was struggling the whole time, but this has made me stronger. The bike was wobbling a lot going into the corners and it was frustrating not being able to catch Almansa. These things can happen; we don’t know exactly what went wrong, but we’re going to analyse it so we can keep improving and give it another push in the upcoming races. I always want to win; it wasn’t possible today, but the important thing is to manage it well so I can keep learning. Third place isn’t good enough for me, but I’ll take away the fact that I’ve learnt a lot. This week I want to enjoy celebrating the championship title and then we’ll turn our attention to Portugal. I hope as many people as possible come along – I’m really looking forward to it.”
15th Marco Morelli (+15.151): “It was a strange race, but I think we’ve managed to gather a lot of information. I needed a race like today’s because, even though I got off to a bad start, from the halfway point right through to the end I was able to learn a great deal. What’s more, I was riding faster than the riders at the front in the final laps. The team told me I managed to close the gap on the leader by three seconds; it’s a shame about the final result, but I’m very happy because I’ve gained confidence for the last two Grand Prix races. There’s light at the end of the tunnel – that was clear to see today. If I look at the result, it was a bad race, but if I look at what I’ve learnt, it was perfect.”
