An eventful weekend at Magny Cours ends in a crash for Inigo Iglesias.

On Friday after the Superpole our replacement rider Samuel di Sora got a penalty for using the 4th engine and that is not allowed. The reason is that Samuel had already used 3 engines at his previous team and so our engine was his 4th. The technical regulations are clear on this and we had no choice but to accept the penalty. In both races Samuel had to start at the back of the grid and take 2 long laps in both races. A heavy penalty that would be difficult to convert into a good result.

Race 1 on Saturday was driven in wet tricky conditions and both our riders Inigo and Samuel built up the race in a controlled way for the best result and to score points. Samuel did a fantastic catch-up race despite the 2 long laps and starting at the back he finished 13th! Inigo Iglesias rode carefully for the points important in the battle for the world championship and finished 7th.

Race 2 on Sunday was under good conditions and Inigo fought for the win, riding in 3rd place Inigo was knocked down 3 corners before the finish and unfortunately lost valuable points for the championship. The rider in question was punished with a longlap/3sec penalty, but that did not help us in the points standings with the competitors for the title

Samuel di Sora planned to take early longlaps in order to have his advantage in case of a red flag, a red flag was sent due to oil on the track. On the lap that Samuel had done his first longlap, the red flag also followed. Inquiry with the steward learned that the longlap was accepted and therefore 1 more to be taken in the shortened race over 7 laps. Unfortunately, just before the re-start we were informed that the long lap was disallowed and Di Sora had to take a long lap twice in 7 laps... Samuel's race was an impossible result in advance and he finished 20th.

Team manager Rob Vennegoor

If you have to take a resume of the year to date, it will be a hot battle until the end. Inigo won the first race in Catalunya but the win was taken away from him after the podium ceremony, in Most Inigo was taken away from the win in Race 2 and now in Magny Cours Inigo was knocked down in race 2. Racing sometimes brings emotions and disappointment because we also want to win our first World Championship title together with Inigo. But as always, we accept decisions that have been made and fight back on the track. As a team we stand strongly behind our riders and all our partners. We will come back strongly at Aragon 27-29 September with Inigo Iglesias and Carter Thompson and hopefully Petr Svoboda will be fit to ride in our team again for the final races at Jerez mid October.