Avintia Racing rider Hector Barbera took a fantastic sixth place in a crazy interrupted race at Assen. It was the first time in 86 years the Dutch TT was held on Sunday, and also the 250th race in the MotoGP era. But the race will be remembered for it’s final outcome.
The race, initially planned with a distance of 26 laps, was red-flagged due to torrential rain with 12 laps to go. In the first part, things went quite bad for Barbera and Pirro. Hector was 14th when the red flag came out, while Michele crashed on the last lap. Luckily he could get his bike back to the garage.
In the second part of the race, Barbera got the pace step by step to cross the chequered flag in sixth place behind Andrea Iannone. With this result, the Avintia Racing rider climbs one place, and with one race left until the half-way mark of the season, he is seventh in the World Championship classification. He also continues to lead the Ducati ranking.
Michele Pirro crashed again with five laps to go, whilst fighting for the top 10. Overall it was a really difficult weekend for the Ducati factory test rider.
HÉCTOR BARBERÁ #8 / @HectorBarbera P6
“I’m really happy with this result because the first race was a disaster. I decided to use the harder rain compound for the rear and it had no grip at all, with the bike spinning even on the straight. Just pointing to the corners, the bike was sliding and I did not enjoy riding in this conditions. In the second race, we used the softer rain tyre and the bike changed completely. But the difference was so big that it took me some laps to get used to it. After such a difficult weekend, with mechanical issues and two crashes, this sixth place is a reward for everybody in the team. I want to thank my team for their support during the weekend, because they react quickly to the problems and they push me to keep my motivation high.”
MICHELE PIRRO #51 / @pirrorider DNF
“This weekend was really difficult for me, I think one of the hardest of my career. But this is racing. I fell sorry for the team, because we had the chance to fight for the seventh place in the second race, but I crashed. I had no warning and the limit was so narrow that I couldn’t save it. I feel bad for the team because today we could have achieved a good result. These two races were a great experience for me, but to be honest I hoped to get better results. Thanks to Avintia for this opportunity, I hope it will go better next time.”
