TOP TEN FOR BOTH ALEX BARROS AND ALEX HOFMANN IN ASSEN
 The
ninth championship appointment saw the Pramac d’Antin
riders participate in the DUTCH TT event at the Assen circuit
in the Netherlands.
Despite predictions, it was a dry race that enabled the Italian-Spanish
Team to obtain important points for the Championship.
Both Alex Barros and Alex Hofmann achieved top ten results
finishing the 26-lap race in seventh and eighth places respectively,
but despite the good results, neither rider was completely
satisfied and had hoped for better results.
Brazilian rider Barros, often a protagonist at the Assen
circuit, made a mistake on the first lap and endured some
difficulties with his riding style and the bike feeling, which
meant he was unable to achieve the desired race performance.
The same could be said for the German rider Alex Hofmann
who had hoped for more after a strong qualifying result and
race set-up.
Alex Barros (7° classified – 43’13.224):
“Sincerely I’m not very satisfied for my race.
I hoped to do something better on this track. I started well,
but at the first turn I lost the trajectory and I went off
the track a bit, maybe this happened because tyres were still
too cold. From that moment my race became more difficult,
furthermore I was not very confident to ride, in contrast
to what I felt yesterday. Today the big problem was when at
the exit of the corners, where my bike widened trajectory
a lot, maybe because of the wind; already this morning, during
the warm-up, we had this problem, we tried to resolve it,
but we weren’t able to work on this perfectly. Now I
want to look at the next race in Germany. For me Sachsenring
is a good circuit and I hope to be able to get a better result.”
Alex Hofmann (8° classified - 43’18.917):
“The eighth position is not too bad, but we looked for
something even better. My race start was good despite the
clutch giving me little problem that made me nervous; for
some minutes, I thought we could see a repeat of what happened
in Jerez that prevented me from finishing the race.
But this wasn’t my real problem; after some laps, when
I had a good race pace, I started to have cramps at my right
arm that made it impossible for me to ride as I would like
and difficult to overtake under braking, two very important
things in this circuit. The things that make me happy is that
I had good feeling with my bike all weekend and that the package
Ducati-Bridgestone and my Team worked well.”
Luis d’Antin - Team Manager: “I
can say that I am only partially satisfied, in fact both Barros
and Hofmann obtained the top ten, but the result could have
been better if they were to be more aggressive in the opening
laps of the race; I think that this compromised the possibility
to finish higher up. At the same time, looking to the next
races, we are confident because all the material at our disposal
is really competitive.”
Official Time:
1° Valentino Rossi: 42’37.149
2° Casey Stoner: 42’39.058
3° Nicky Hayden: 42’43.226
4° Dani Pedrosa: 42’47.614
5° John Hopkins: 42’50.287
7° Alex Barros: 43’13.224
8° Alex Hofmann: 43’18.917
|
