“Fabulous Day” For Terol At Wet Jerez
Overnight rain provided new conditions for the 125cc riders at Jerez on Sunday, but the change in conditions did little to hinder the form riders. BANKIA Aspar’s Nico Terol took a home win at the Spanish Grand Prix, and maintains his lead in the overall standings with maximum points.
Nico Terol finished second at Jerez last year, and wanted to go one better. Nothing less would do, and the Spaniard ended the weekend with his mission complete. He took a first home win of his career, and continued his 100% record in the 2011 season. The BANKIA Aspar rider started strong and was only followed by teammate Héctor Faubel. With two laps to go, Terol made his push and was able to cross the finish line in first place.
Héctor Faubel would have been on the podium too, were it not for some late misfortune. Having been the only rider capable of catching up with Terol early on, he had to do so again when his teammate broke free. It all came to an end at the second turn of the last lap, however, as he hit the white line and suffered a crash. Picking the bike back up, Faubel came home eleventh at his home race.
Adrián MartÃn started from 14th on the grid, and was not at ease with the surface on raceday. Nonetheless, he came back up through the field after losing ground at the start, and moved up to twelfth by the time the chequered flag was waved. He took his first four points of the year, and hopes to do even better at Estoril.
1st Nico Terol:
“It has been a fabulous day -absolutely indescribable. Winning at Jerez was one of my pending objectives, and it was awesome. It seemed to go on forever, above all because of the bad conditions. It was so hard to maintain focus, as we were riding on the limit the entire time. I got a good start and made a big push, but Héctor managed to catch me up and pass me. I used that time to study his lines. I got back in front and opened up a gap later on, but I had a big scare that really shook me so had to reign myself in. That meant that the others caught up with me. I wanted to make my move on the final two laps, because only a victory would do today. It’s a shame that Héctor crashed, because he had an incredible race and deserved to be on the podium. I am very happy with the opening two races of the season,it has been a fantastic start and we will have to continue working at full speed.”
11th Héctor Faubel:
“It was such a shame to have crashed, because I had good pace throughout the entire race. The start wasn’t perfect, and I was passed by other riders, but I know that the race was long. I managed to claw my way back to Nico, passed him and tried to impose my pace. It might have looked like I crashed out on the last lap because I was fighting for the win, but I know when I crossed the line at the beginning of the lap that I wouldn’t be able to reach him. I hit the white line on turn two, and that made me lose the front. The most positive thing is that I put up a fight, felt competitive and that the bike is being developed as it should. We haven’t had a great start to the season, but there are many races to go and it is important to keep working hard on the bike.”
12th Adrián MartÃn:
“Even though I finished in the points, I am not satisfied with this result. I could have placed much higher. I wasn’t feeling at all at ease during the race, and above all it was hard for me to brake. I tried to fight against the riders in my group, in any case. I hope that I can have a better weekend in Portugal, and get in amongst the top ten as I should be doing.”
Source: Aspar Media
