Team Suzuki Press Office – October 30.
Maverick Viñales – 6th
Aleix Espargaró – 13th
Team SUZUKI ECSTAR riders Maverick Viñales and Aleix Espargaró scored sixth and 13th places under difficult weather and track conditions during the Shell Malaysian MotoGP™ at Sepang today.
Following a 20-minute delay on the start because of a heavy tropical storm, making racing too dangerous, Viñales – who was fastest in the morning’s ‘dry’ warm-up - and Espargaró both had good jumps on the start, moving up into the leading places. Espargaró was in the fight for fourth position until running wide and dropping down to 13th, so spent the race trying to catch-up, while Viñales lost some places at third-race distance before gaining some after a couple of riders slipped-off.
Ken Kawauchi – Technical Manager:
“It was a very disappointing race because in the dry sessions, like FP3 and also this morning’s warm-up, Maverick was very fast and also Aleix was very strong, so I was looking forward to the race in dry conditions.