Difficult Race Day For Alice Team Riders Elias & Guintoli At Phillip Island
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Oct 05, 2008
Difficult race for the Alice Team riders Toni Elias and Sylvain Guintoli. The French rider has found himself in an accident in the second turn and was obligated to go off track with Chris Vermeulen losing almost twenty seconds from the group. From that moment on the pair put their energies together to reach the riders in front of them. Sylvain, injured at his left shoulder blade yesterday morning, grit his teeth and after passing Melandri at half race, overtook Vermeulen on the finish line concluding in fourteenth position. Toni Elias has instead maintained the eleventh position from the third to the last lap bringing home five points for the World classification. The Alice Team is now in seventh position in the Team’s classification, while Elias and Guintoli are respectively in twelfth and thirteenth position in the riders’ classification. Next MotoGP round in Malaysia in two weeks.
Fabiano Sterlacchini – Alice Team Technical Director
“We have done what was possible with the set up of the bike today. Each race depends by many factors; one of them is surely the start. If we had started in a better way we would have surely seen a different race. We also need to improve a lot in the qualifying because starting so far back is always complicated. Sylvain was very brave today. He has a lot of pain at the left shoulder blade, but he fought hard and with his physical conditions and the unlucky accident at the beginning of the race we can be satisfied with his performance.”
Toni Elias – Alice Team rider (11th in the race – 12th in the MotoGP classification)
“We maintained yesterday’s handicap with the tyres. It was really hard. In addition I didn’t start too well and this complicated even more the situation. After a few laps I made it to find back yesterday’s rhythm that allowed me to gain back some time. If I had one more lap I would have probably had the opportunity to overtake at least a couple of riders that were in front of me. It’s a pity. I will try to make it up in Malaysia on a track that I really like.”
Sylvain Guintoli – Alice Team rider (14th in the race – 13th in the MotoGP classification)
“I had a lot of pain today and I didn’t know if I would have make it to finish the race. Then, in the second corner, I made a mistake due to some confusion on track: I went long losing a lot of time. Together with Vermeulen, who also went off track, we made it to maintain a good rhythm gaining back a lot of time. I knew that on the final straight my Ducati was really fast and therefore I decided to attack in the last lap to gain a position. I made it and for how this weekend went I can consider my self satisfied with the final position.”
