Great fightbacks from Oliveira and Binder at Assen
01/07/2018Red Bull KTM Ajo Moto2 riders have excellent races at the Dutch GP to place sixth and seventh, respectively.
Continuing the trend of recent rounds, Miguel Oliveira and Brad Binder put in their best showing of the weekend on raceday at the Dutch GP. The Red Bull KTM Ajo riders had some good first laps, which allowed them to move from the sixth and seventh rows of the grid into the Top 10. Both managed to maintain a great pace throughout the 24 lap contest and claim important points with their respective sixth and seventh places.
With the straight at Assen the shortest of the year, overtaking is always tricky, but Oliveira was able to fight his way back from seventeenth place. The Portuguese gained 5 positions on the first sector and caught the Top 10 at the end of the second lap. From there, he moved up to seventh place, a position that he kept for much of the race. A crash for another rider in the final stages allowed him to gain another place.
Binder had a race similar to that of his teammate from twentieth place. The South African, however, made a late sprint on the last five laps, when he was in tenth position, making his final pass on the last lap.
With his 10 points earned today, Miguel Oliveira continues to have scored points at every round so far in 2018. He remains in second position -with 128 points- and is 16 points off the series leader. Brad Binder climbs to seventh position and has a total of 66 points. These great performances allow Red Bull KTM Ajo to continue as leaders of the team standings.
Results (Race)
1. Francesco Bagnaia (Kalex) 39:30.436
2. Fabio Quartararo (Speed Up) +1.748
3. Alex Marquez (Kalex) +2.179
4. Marcel Schrotter (Kalex) +4.094
5. Joan Mir (Kalex) +4.342
6. Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Ajo) +5.230
7. Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Ajo) +9.568
Moto2 World Championship Standing 2018
1. Francesco Bagnaia (Kalex) 144 points
2. Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 128 points
3. Alex Marquez (Kalex) 110 points
4. Lorenzo Baldassarri (Kalex) 93 points
5. Joan Mir (Kalex) 75 points
7. Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 66 points
Aki Ajo – Team Manager
“This has been a tricky weekend for all our Moto2 team. We have to be very happy with the final results in the race: The sixth position from Miguel [Oliveira] and seventh for Brad [Binder]. Despite this and the great work done by the entire team throughout the weekend, we have not yet been able to perform at our best in practice. We have to find the key to achieving better positions on the grid. If we do that, we will not have to risk so much in the race. We’ll see in Germany if we can find the solution.”44 MIGUEL OLIVEIRA
“It’s been a weekend for learning. We tried to test out many options to solve our problem in qualifying and also to understand how we could go better in the race. I’m not completely disappointed with the result because in the end it was the best we could do today, but I am positive about the future. I know that the team are completely focused on trying to find a good solution for me. We got a good handful of points for the overall standings and now we have to focus on continuing to work on this aspect. In Germany we’ll be going for more.”41 BRAD BINDER
“It was a tough race. I started from far back and I knew that it was going to be quite difficult. Over the entire weekend I have never had either a good pace or a good lap time. I knew that starting from 20th position would be a big challenge. I’m happy because in the warmup we were able to take a step forward by finding something better with the bike, which gave me a lot more confidence. Overall, it’s good because I was finally able to ride the bike as I wanted. Although the result is not as good as we would have liked before beginning the weekend, I think we have taken a great step forward and we can leave Assen satisfied.”