Jordi Torres opens his 2014 points account with a 9th in Qatar

At around twenty past eight in the evening in Doha the green light for the Moto2 season finally illuminated the starting grid at the Losail Circuit, where Tito Rabat lined up in pole position only to be beaten to the holseshot by Takaaki Nakagami.

With Kallio in close pursuit his team-mate Rabat recovered from a bad start to form a group of three that escaped from the rest and set a strong pace at the front, including a new lap record (2.00.168). Rabat and Nakagami battled for the win until the final lap, the Spaniard coming out on top to lead the championship after one round.

The weekend did not go to plan for the MAPFRE Aspar Team, who had Jordi Torres starting from sixteenth place and Nico Terol from 21st.

The Spanish pair did their best to recover ground in the race and they were in twelfth and thirteenth respectively after one lap, already stepping up their pace from practice, but two laps later Jordi missed a gear and lost positions, coming back to take ninth.

Nico was up to tenth place on lap eleven but he lost positions after running wide and was then forced to retire with a technical issue on the 16th lap.

9th Jordi Torres:
“It was a tough race because we started from so far back but we improved in every session and we knew that our potential was good for the race. I made a fast start and I was in a good position to make up ground but I made a mistake and hit neutral in a fast corner, which cost me a lot of positions. I had to take a lot of risks to make the ground up and my tyres suffered as a result so ninth place was the best I could do. In general I am happy with the result because it has been a difficult weekend but we have worked hard to improve and achieved a good result from a long way back. It was a shame about the mistake because without it we could have been close to a podium.”

Nico Terol (DNF):
“I made a good start tonight and I pushed hard over the first few laps, I was happy because it was the first time I had felt happy on the bike all weekend. We made a positive change for the warm-up, going back to some of the settings from last year, and I was able to make up some positions to move up to tenth until I had a big slide. A lot of riders came past but I made some positions back again, and then the engine started cutting out before stopping altogether. It was a shame to finish like that but after such a tough weekend I am happy with the feeling I had with the bike in the race. That is the big positive to take from today and I hope it can be the start of our progress.”

Source: Aspar Media