Maverick Viñales suffers mechanical problems and joins Miguel Oliveira and Álex Rins in missing out on points in rainy race.
The Repsol Moto3 riders faced a difficult race at Sachsenring, thanks to a huge downpour that befell the Germany circuit ten minutes before the scheduled start. This caused a 25 minute delay to the contest. Once the lights finally went out, the 27-lap contest was a nightmate for Maverick Viñales, Miguel Oliveira and Álex Rins, who finished seventeenth, nineteenth and twentiefth, respectively —all outside the points.
Qualifying yesterday had also taken place under persistent rain, making the race doubly tough for the trio due to their lowly placements on the grid. On a completely wet track, Rins got a good start and moved up to eighteenth within a few corners —although his race would become harder.
Maverick Viñales also had problems, with a mechanical issue ruling out any chance of a spectacular comeback. When the moisture on track had been reduced and his engine had heated up, the Spaniard looked to uncover the radiator that had been taped up to maintain a high temperature. However, the string had broken off and he was unable to remove the tape, leading to overheating and a drop in performance.
The trio were looking to stay upright and take points to conclude a tough weekend, but slowly dropped down the order. Viñales even conceded positions to at one point find himself in twenty-second. As the track dried out, they were able to make slight improvements. Viñales got back into a group of five riders battling for fourteenth, but just missed out due to a lack of power on the straight. His rivals went past, he was relegated to seventeenth and he joined Miguel Oliveira and Álex Rins outside the points —in nineteenth and twentiefth, respectively.
The win went to Sandro Cortese, who now leads Maverick Viñales by 18 points in the overall standings. Álex Rins and Miguel Oliveira occupy eighth and eleventh position, respectively, with 54 and 39 points. lasificación general, en la que es segundo. Álex Rins y Miguel Oliveira ocupan la octava y duodécima posición, respectivamente, con 54 y 39 puntos.
Maverick Viñales >> Audio
17th at 1:11.122
“I am very angry. I think that today was a day for doing a good job and making a memorable comeback, but we had bad luck and the bike heated up a lot. We lost a lot of performance because of that. I had a cord to uncover the radiator that we had gaffer taped up to stop the rain cooling it too much, but that broke and we were left with a bike that was 130ºC for the entire race. We were expecting that it might rain, but we hadn’t bargained for this problem in which the bike wasn’t pushing at all. I tried to make up ground on the corners, but everyone passed me easily on the straights. We were convinced that we could overcome the rain and get in front with a decent pace, but it was a very hard race. We have many races to go in which to solve the issue. We know that we have to win, whatever happens.”
Miguel Oliveira >> Audio
19th at 1:18.878
“That was a difficult race. We had been having problems in the rain since yesterday and things didn’t go any better for us today here. It was a pity, because in the warmup I felt very comfortable on the bike and we were looking at a dry race. In the end, we had to ride in the wet again. We were far down on the grid, so our strategy was to get a good start and make a comeback. We had the pace to be in the top three, but everything changed with the rain. Our aims changed from attack to preservation, as the most important thing was to stay upright.”
Álex Rins >> Audio
20th at 1:18.957
“We got a good start, although later on we lacked the confidence to continue fighting in the group. I didn’t have a good feel on the entry to the corners, thanks to the rain and the lack of grip. I couldn’t ride as I would have liked. When the track dried, the bike started moving about a lot and we weren’t able to finish strong. We have to look ahead and focus on the next race, because today was a day to forget.”
