FTR MOTO AND CORSI READY FOR MUGELLO ACTION
FTR MOTO and Ioda Racing Project’s Simone Corsi are looking to Sunday’s Italian round of the Moto2 World Championship to increase the Italian rider’s challenge on the 2011 title.
M211-mounted Corsi is the only rider to finish every race this year and he sits in third place in the World Championship with seven of the 17 rounds gone.
While Corsi has been competitive from the start of the season young Spanish Esteve Rabat 11th in the Championship has shown front-running consistency of late, taking a sixth and two seventh places from the last three rounds on his Blusens STX M211. And his team-mate Yonny Hernandez has shown similar form with three point-scoring finishes from three races to sit 18th in the series.
The MZ-FTR partnership continues to blossom as Anthony West arrives in Mugello on the back of a career-best Moto2 finish of fourth place at Assen last Saturday. His team-mate Max Neukirchner has scored in all but one race this year to hold 17th place in the Championship, two places ahead of West.
Mattia Pasini looked strong enough to challenge for a podium finish at Assen but after crashing while leading in the previous round at Silverstone, GB the Ioda Racing Project M211 rider opted for a finish and grabbed a safe sixth place at Assen.
Pol Espargaro set a succession of fastest laps at Assen on his HP Tuenti Speed Up M211 before crashing out and will target Mugello to improve on his best finish of the year, sixth place in Portugal.
Ratthapark Wilairot, on the Thais Singha SAG M211, will be looking to add to his solitary points-scoring finish of the year in Spain in Sunday’s Mugello race.
American Kenny Noyes (FOGI/GP Tech Team), Santiago Hernandez, on the SAG Team FTR, and Valentin Debise (Speed Up) all go in search of a top 15 finish in Italy and their first points of the campaign.
“Mugello is a great event and I’m really keen to see how the Moto2 top speeds compare on the start and finish straight there,” said FTR’s Steve Bones. “The Mugello race track has just about everything possible; long undulating corners, really high speed and slow corners so it offers a good all-round challenge.”