Best Performance Of The Season For Guintoli At Dutch Grand Prix
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Jun 28, 2008
A day much similar to yesterday with wet track in the morning and a dry race in the afternoon. Sylvain Guintoli, who started from the tenth position, didn’t make it to start well losing two positions in the first turns, but after the unlucky falls by Rossi and De Puniet, he found himself in tenth position at the end of the first lap. In the first few laps the French rider didn’t make it to find the same rhythm registered in yesterday’s sessions and only after two third of the race he improved his performances reaching in the last lap Toseland. The British rider made it to defend the ninth position on the finish line. This has been for Guintoli the first top ten of the season that demonstrate the good step forward taken. His teammate, Toni Elias, didn’t make it to solve the problems encountered in the past two days and had to be content with the final twelfth position. In two weeks his opportunity to step up for the Grand Prix of Ger many, on the Sachsenring circuit.
Sergio Verbena – Sylvain Guintoli’s Track Engineer
“Sylvain has done a good race. He has committed a couple of mistakes and this cost him one or two positions. I think that only some hundreds of meters and he could have overtaken Toseland, but we can consider our self satisfied of this first top ten of the season. He found a good riding style to manage the bike and I believe we can do the same or even improve in the next Grand Prix in Germany.”
Sylvain Guintoli – Alice Team rider (10th in the race – 16th in the MotoGP Classification)
“I am happy for how it went the weekend overall and this is very important for us. I am sorry only because I thought I could have done better today. The race rhythm wasn’t the same of the past two days. I committed a mistake when I was behind Toseland and while trying to solve it I went out of the track losing some seconds. Without that mistake I would have surely finished in front of him if not even further up. It is strange because here and in Donington I registered my best lap times in the last five laps of the race: I have to find the way to be much more competitive since the first laps. I must thanks my technicians: they always gave their best and if today we made it to enter the top ten it’s also thanks to them.”
Toni Elias – Alice Team rider (12th in the race – 12th in the MotoGP Classification)
“Today nothing went well. I didn’t enjoy it at all. We have to forget all we have done to do much better in the second part of the championship. With the Team, Ducati and Bridgestone I am sure we can do much better. The only consolation I have is that I finally made it to finish a race in Assen in the major class: I never made it for various unlucky reasons.”
