Spaniard fights for title until final corner of the season with Maverick Viñales, but loses out in race and title fight to rival. Teammate Alex Marquez places fourth.
Alex Rins today took the runner-up spot in the Moto3 World Championship, after finishing third in the final race of the season in Valencia. The race was a battle between Rins, Salom and Viñales, and one which raged through to the end of the 24 laps of the Ricardo Tormo circuit. Alex Marquez placed fourth in the contest, leading the second group.
The race was the expected fight between the three title contenders. Viñales, Salom and Rins led the way early on, followed closely by Jonas Folger and Jack Miller –although the duo were never in the tussle for the race win.
On lap 14 Salom crashed, eliminating him from the title chase. Rins and Viñales remained. It was the latter who led until three laps from the end, when Rins took control and a series of overtaking moves took place.
Finally, despite Rins’ best attempts on the final corner, Viñales held the lead and Folger passed Rins, beating him to the line by a thousandth of a second. Rins thus finishes the season second and teammate Alex Marquez fourth –the same as his final position in the race today.
Alex Rins >> Audio
3rd at 0.187sec.
“Getting to the final corner of the season still in with a chance of taking the title, having taken zero points at two races, I am not at all disappointed. It was an incredible battle for me and I have never fought so hard before, nor have I ever learnt so much as I have this year. We will try to win the World Championship next year, but it won’t be easy. The strategy didn’t work out completely for us today, because obviously we wanted to win, but in general the race went as we had imagined. I had a small scare at the start and maybe my bike wasn’t accelerating like the others, but I am happy with the season as a whole. I also want to thank my team, who have been behind me through the good times and the bad.”
Alex Marquez >> Audio >
4th at 13.666 sec.
“It was a difficult race. All weekend we found it hard to set the bike up and we didn’t have that little extra that the frontrunners had. In the end we placed fourth and I think that’s good, because we weren’t at 100%. We will try to analyse what happened so that it doesn’t occur again next year. Now we will rest and hope the winter passes by quickly in order to get back to work for next season.”
