AUSTRIAN GP

Lights and shadows for the GASGAS Aspar Team

David Alonso has crashed out when he was leading the race. Ryusei Yamanaka has completed a great comeback to finish seventh in the Austrian Grand Prix

 

Deniz Öncü has won a thrilling race in Austria to achieve his second victory of the season. The race has started with Dani Holgado pushing hard from the beginning. Five riders haven been able to follow the Championship leader and have formed a very fast front group. However, a mechanical problem for Jaume Masià, which has left him out of the race, has broken the top 6, leaving David Alonso and Ayumu Sasaki more than a second behind the lead. However, the Colombian and the Japanese have caught them up again after the rookie set two consecutive fastest laps. Alonso has taken the lead, but in the next corner he has crashed, which has left Dani Holgado, Ayumu Sasaki, Deniz Öncü and Collin Veijer fighting for the win. The four riders have completed a final few laps in which everyone could have crossed the finish line in first position. In the end, it has been the Turkish rider who has taken advantage of the fight between Holgado and Sasaki to get the victory. The Spanish has ended just five thousandths off the win, while the Japanese has finished a tenth behind Öncü. Veijer, who has taken his best result in the category, and Iván Ortolá, who has come back from eighteenth position, have completed the top five.

The GASGAS Aspar Team has had a bittersweet Sunday in Austria. Ryusei Yamanaka, who has started from thirteenth place, has managed to finish seventh after a difficult race start. The Japanese rider came to Austria after some difficult Grands Prix for him, but today he has shown that he has the potential to fight with the best. With these points, Yamanaka makes a small jump in the overall standings and moves up to thirteenth position. His GASGAS Aspar teammate, David Alonso, has lived the negative part of the day. The Colombian has crashed when he was leading the race. Alonso had made a great start and was fighting with the fastest riders at the lead. However, on the twelfth lap, he has suffered a crash that has left him with no chance to fight for his second victory in a row. Despite the incident, the 17-year-old has been able to return to the track and finish the Austrian Grand Prix in twenty-ninth position.

 

7th Ryusei Yamanaka (+8.137): “Well, no race is ever perfect until you win it! I’m not happy with the result but I am happy with how we worked from practice 1 until now. We improved the bike and even though I was a bit uncomfortable in some places at the beginning of the race I managed it quite well and could deal with the chattering. I could ride faster after that, so it was a bit of a shame. Our targets are higher than this today but we’ll go to Barcelona with good expectations.”

29th David Alonso (1 lap): “I had a good start and made a decent rhythm but then almost crashed when [Jaume] Masia’s engine broke and he checked-up. The first three broke away but I was able to use my pace to catch them. I was comfortable and took the lead and then I didn’t do anything radically different into that corner; it was simply that tenth of a second later on the brakes. A tiny, tiny mistake and I paid a lot for it. I grabbed the bike and continued; I’m happy in one way but I also know what could have been.”