KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 9 — A change of motorcycle engine adversely impacted the performance of the country’s Moto2 rider Hafizh Syahrin Abdullah who merely finished the race in ninth place out of 22 riders at the Czech Republic Grand Prix (GP) at the Brno Circuit today.
The Inde Aspar Team Moto2 rider revealed that he was struggling to compete with the riders in the front group as the engine used in the race was very different from the one used in the Spanish GP and Andalusia GP last month.
He, however, was thankful at the ninth position which saw him collecting seven points, and was in 14th place out of 31 riders with a collection of 17 points after four races so far.
“With my pace just now, I was confident of getting into the top five best riders, but the accident alert on my machine came on many times, making it difficult for me to chase the riders in the front group,” he said after the race.
Another national rider, Kasma Daniel Kasmayuddin, representing the Onexox TKKR SAG Team, however, failed to finish the race after going out of control on the 10th turn of the fifth lap of the race.
Italian rider Enea Bastianini of the Italtrans Racing Team won his third podium of the season with a time of 39 minutes 13.926 seconds, followed by rider Sam Lowes from Great Britain representing EG 0.0 Marc VDS and Tennor American Racing team rider Joe Roberts of the United States, who lagged 0.423 seconds and 5,948 seconds behind Bastianini, respectively.
The next round of race is the Austrian GP scheduled to take place at the Red Bull Ring Circuit, Spielberg, Austria on August 14-16. — Bernama
