Rain But Shine For Uribe In Moto2 European Championship Season Opener
Jayson Uribe was back in action yesterday for the opening round of the 2017 Moto2 European Championship, getting his season underway in fine style at the Albacete circuit with a solid 10th place after a race long 20 lap duel.
The weather in Europe had turned surprisingly wintery with Spain and the region around the circuit battered by heavy rain, thunderstorms and wind during the weekend meaning far from ideal racing conditions.
Nevertheless Uribe who had an impressive debut season last year, was in fine form and happy to be back with his AGR Team.
Steady progress during free practice put Jayson in the mix and despite losing a couple of positions in the second qualifying session the #36 was fired up when race day dawned.
Another good start saw Uribe moving forward through the pack before an on track duel to the flag allowed him to really show his ability.
6 championship points on the board is an encouraging start to the year with the promise of even better results next time out.
Jayson Uribe – 10th: “I had a good weekend at Albacete. It was a weird weekend with rain on all 3 days, including the warm up, but then we had a dry and windy race. All of the practices went to according plan with improvements made in each session. The qualifying sessions were tricky. I went out to set a time in Q1 and presumed that the times in Q2 would be slower due to worsening weather conditions, but as it turned out, we made a mistake in our strategy and ended up dropping 3 positions on the grid by the end of Q2. Warm up presented its own challenges as there was a dry line except for many of the fast corners, which were still considerably wet from the early morning thundershowers. I decided to play it safe and stay with the settings which we had.
“I had a good start to the race but ended up on the outside of the corner and got pushed wide, resulting in a few positions lost. I put my head down and charged to fight my way back into the top 10. I had a great battle with Federico Fuligni, from Italy, for the remaining 14 out of 20 laps and in the end, I chose to finish strong in the points rather than throw it away on a sketchy outside corner, last lap pass. We are off to a good start for the 2017 season; I know that I have areas that I can improve on and areas where our team will continue to mesh together as the season progresses.Overall, I am extremely happy with my team and my results and we are looking forward to Round 2 at Catalunya Barcelona on June 18th.”