In an eventful Styrian Grand Prix, which was red flagged and restarted with 27 laps today, Tech3 KTM Factory Racing eventually scored one point with Iker Lecuona. The Spanish youngster started from P18 on the grid and made up several positions on the first lap already and managed to climb all the way up to P12 just after half time of the race. Unfortunately, he got a long lap penalty with three laps to go, which saw him going back to P16, but he fought hard for the final point on the last lap to end up 15^th on the line.

On the other hand, Danilo Petrucci likewise made up four places by the end of lap one and was fighting to make his way towards the points scoring positions. Although he did very consistent lap times, the Italian couldn’t stick with the group ahead of him and ended the first race after the summer break eventually in P18 following a slight mistake on the final lap, which saw him dropping back.

Iker Lecuona

Position: 15^th  

Championship: 21^st

Points: 14

“It was a difficult day. IN the wet conditions this morning, I felt very strong. I expected the race to be wet, but finally it was dry. After 10 laps, I didn’t feel any grip anymore and had a lot of spinning. I struggled a lot during the race and on top of that I got this long lap penalty. I didn’t understand why. With one point, I’m not very happy, as I knew we could have been finishing a lot closer to the front with the potential we have. But it’s just the first weekend and in a few days we have the opportunity to recover, so it’s time to restart.”

Danilo Petrucci

Position: 18^th

Championship: 18^th

Points: 26

“We knew it would be a difficult race for me in terms of acceleration and in fact, I struggled a lot to stay in the group. I managed to stay quite close to the others, but at the end, I tried to pass Iker, went wide and lost pretty many positions. I’m very sorry for this mistake! All the race I fought with the bike, trying to recover the time lost on the straight. We will try again next week.”

Hervé Poncharal

Team Manager

“We were quite disappointed when we saw the red flag, because Iker got a really great start in race one, but he did the same again in race two. I think Iker is good to start and to push hard during the first lap. I believe he did a good race, steady, always in the points. He went up to P11 even, took his space and we were quite safe in P12 until he unfortunately got the long lap penalty, which ruined our race. I think this is a tough track for that and we saw that we were not the only ones. But eventually he dropped to 16^th and passed Danilo on the last lap. So we got a point. It’s a small reward, but I think Iker did a strong weekend, both, in dry and wet conditions and I’d like to thank him for that. It’s still a bit of a bitter feeling to have lost that P12, that was ours three laps to go.”

“On the other side of the garage, I think Danilo was never in a position to score points until the last laps when Iker got his long lap penalty. He was not far in terms of lap times, he has been fighting with Rossi, Marini and Bastianini at some stage of the race. He ended up the race with interesting feedback. There’s not much more to say than thanks guys, to have pushed the whole weekend. Let’s try to maximize on the data and the knowledge we have now on that track in order to be better next weekend.”