PHILLIP ISLAND, Australia: QMMF Racing Team riders Anthony West and Roman Ramos looked like true team-mates in the Australian Grand Prix, riding side-by-side for most of the second part of the Moto2 race to finish in 22nd and 23rd spot respectively.
But the first part of the race couldn’t have been more different for both of them. Whereas Ramos fought within his group from the first to the final lap, recovering from his 31st place on the grid and fighting for every position, West stormed into the top 20 almost immediately and was close to the point rankings when he made a small mistake going into a turn and ran off the track. Almost pushed to the last spot, West started his hunt for the second time and recovered quickly from 30th place but the big success that he had hoped for at his home Grand Prix remained out of reach.
“I had a good start and passed many riders in the first half of a lap. Then, I had a big high-side and lost three positions. I kept fighting and I felt the bike was heavy to turn compared to other riders in the fast sections, so it was difficult to ride. It got worse the more fuel I burned, because the fuel load kept the front down to help it turn. There was a group in front of me and I could have stayed with them to get points, but when I entered one turn I made a small mistake and went straight off the track. From there I came back and caught up with the pack of riders in front of me, but the real race was over,” West said.
His team-mate Ramos said: “It was a tough weekend, especially Friday and Saturday. But after the warm-up, we made another change to the set-up of the bike and as it turned out in the race, it was much better than before. I was battling with people that I had considered unreachable before and I was able to defend myself as well. I fought tooth and nail from the first lap not to let the group in front of me escape and this paid off. All in all I can’t be too happy with the weekend, but at least we managed to fix some of our issues for the race and put up a fight. I hope this will help us to have a good start into the next race in Malaysia. I want to thank the team because they kept trying to give me the best solutions for this difficult track.”
THE PENINSULA
