Ajo Motorsport rider unable to place on podium in difficult race, but retains the lead in the Moto2 World Championship by 3 points.

Johann Zarco finished off the rostrum on Sunday at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, in the thirteenth round of the season. The Ajo Motorsport rider had to climb from seventh place to fourth at Misano in order to claim 13 important points, keeping hold of the lead in the overall standings.

The reigning Moto2 World Champion made a good start at the San Marino Grand Prix, but was unable to remain at the front and entered into a fight with five other riders –relegating him to seventh. The Frenchman could not make progress until the midway point of the contest, when he performed a perfect move to pass two of his rivals. Attempting to escape and reach Takaaki Nakagami in third, the Ajo Motorsport rider eventually had to settle for fourth place.

With this result and five races remaining, Johann Zarco remains leader of the intermediate class with 194 points -3 ahead of his nearest rival. The next race will be held on September 25th at MotorLand Aragon.

Aki Ajo – Team Manager
“This has been a weekend in which Johann [Zarco] has been very strong, especially in practice. Fourth place is not bad, but we have lost some points from our overall lead. After two good days of work, we must analyse what happened in the race thoroughly. It seems that maybe this time we have just not been lucky and had a tyre that did not allow us to push hard on the early laps. Nevertheless, we were gradually able to move up the order and get a good final place. This happens sometimes and we are excited to continue the fight for the title over the coming races.”

Results (Race)
1. Lorenzo Baldassarri (Kalex) 42:45.885
2. Alex Rins (Kalex) +2.523
3. Takaaki Nakagami (Kalex) +6.199
4. Johann Zarco (Ajo Motorsport) +8.942
5. Franco Morbidelli (Kalex) +10.016

Moto2 World Championship Standing 2016
1. Johann Zarco (Ajo Motorsport) 194 points
2. Alex Rins (Kalex) 191 points
3. Thomas Luthi (Kalex) 141 points
4. Sam Lowes (Kalex) 137 points
5. Jonas Folger (Kalex) 127 points

5 JOHANN ZARCO

“It’s a shame because I was prepared to fight for the win today, as I’ve been very strong all weekend. I started well and I felt good but was not very fast; I tried to go faster but I couldn’t. When I started fighting I lost many positions. I kept calm because I thought I could catch up but it was not to be. I did my best to keep up and was able to pass some other riders, although not enough to reach the podium. We are still leaders but Rins had a great race and must be congratulated for that. Now we will analyse what happened and work to improve for the next few races.”