United States - English
It was a good opening round of the 2018 Moto2 World Championship for Jorge Navarro and Team Federal Oil Gresini Moto2, who were able to see the chequered flag and get back into the top-15 for the first time since September 24th 2017 (Aragon Grand Prix).
The young Spanish rider showed promising signs already in the previous two days at the Losail International Circuit as he first moved up to the top positions of the timesheets in numerous occasions during free practice and then claimed seventh place on the grid for the first race of the year.
After a not-so-exciting start, Navarro managed to display a good pace and, with a good number of successful overtaking manoeuvres, he was able to move all the way up from 15th to 9th place before being overtaken by Marini in the final stages of the encounter.
Navarro nevertheless scored some valuable points ahead of the next Grand Prix on the calendar, which takes place in three weeks’ time in Argentina.
10º – JORGE NAVARRO #9
“My start wasn’t too bad but I lost some places at turn one. I struggled a bit in the first few laps as I lacked a little bit of aggression – mainly because I really didn’t want to make any costly mistake. Once I had clear track ahead I was able to find a good rhythm and that helped me recover some position. I got all the way up to ninth place but then Marini was able to catch me and get past. I believe this was a positive weekend: we found good settings and with our goal being the top-10, I guess we succeeded. We learned a lot and, as I already said, it was important to make it to the chequered flag because the previous time it happened was Aragon 2017.”
Source: gresiniracing.com