Moto2 Report
FTR MOTO machines were heavily involved in Sunday’s incident-packed Catalunya Grand Prix with three of the four machines finishing the 23-lap race and Czech Republic rider Karel Abraham scooping a career-best finish of fourth place on his Cardion AB Motoracing Team FTR M210.
Alex Debon – riding injured from his Assen crash the previous week – was involved in a first corner, multi-rider crash and the Aeroport de Castello-Ajo Team rider was unable to continue. Although he escaped injury Debon left the circuit immediately and went to hospital for further checks.
Andrea Iannone qualified his FIMMCO Speed Up FTR machine on pole position for the third time and was making his way through the field but was deemed to have moved ahead of another rider at the start of the second lap while yellow flags were waving. Despite holding a 4.0s lead Iannone was penalised with a "ride-through" penalty, he rejoined and eventually finished 13th.
Abraham continued to impress in only his fifth outing since taking delivery of his FTR M210 before the Le Mans third round six weeks ago. The Czech Republic rider followed up his ninth place at Assen last week with fourth place and moved up seven places in the World Championship standings to 15th.
Iannone’s FIMMCO Speed Up team-mate Gabor Talmacsi fought through from 32nd place on the grid to take 11th place, the hard-riding Hungarian rider sits 10th in the Championship, one place ahead of Debon and five places behind Iannone.
"What a day," said FTR’s Steve Bones. "Andrea Iannone was on course for a repeat of Mugello and Assen and I’m sure the arguments will go on long into the night as to whether or not he actually saw the yellow flags, whether or not he’d already passed the rider and so on. At least he proved the performance of the M210 at another circuit and we move on to Germany now with increased optimism.
"Karel Abraham’s fourth place is simply amazing. Since we started working with the Cardion team Karel has shown an impressive consistency and he continues to progress, today’s result is reward for the effort everyone has put in. We always knew it would be a tough day for Alex Debon and unfortunately it was over pretty quickly. And we should recognise the fight of Gabor Talmacsi on the FIMMCO FTR, it probably won’t be too long before he is starting to emulate the results of his team-mate."
