American Kenny Noyes took his PL Racing Suter to third place at Jerez de la Frontera in the opening round of the Spanish Moto2 Championship in a restarted race that consisted of nine laps run under heavy rain. After the first start, red-flagged due to a crash, the grid of 32 riders returned to the drying track, all on slicks, only to have rain begin to fall on the warm-up lap. Although the track was drying before the restart, the race had been declared “wet” by Race Direction. Spaniard Dani Rivas won on a TSR Galicia Kalex from Australian Kris McLaren (BHP FTR) with Noyes third, just a bike length out of second at the flag. “We really didn’t have a good rain set-up in the warm-up and, when it started to rain heavily right at the start, I backed off a bit because I thought they would stop it again and I wanted to stay on two wheels so that I could make the restart. Then, when I realized the race was going on, I got my head down and fought back toward the front, but by then Rivas was gone. I had a plan to pass McLaren for third on the inside on the final corner, but the two of us caught Mariñelarena who was second at the time. McLaren dove inside and there just wasn’t room for three of us side by side, but I got good drive out. We both passed Mariñelarena and I was third, just missing second, ” said Kenny. “The team did a great job putting all this together so quickly after the team I was going to ride the World Championship with backed out on me. A week ago I just had a rolling Suter chassis, no engine and no practice on the bike. I got to thank the guys, my crew chief George Vukmanovich, team owner Pedro Parajua, “Boqui,” all the PL team. Coming out of here with 16 points was way more than I expected with no pre-season. Now we have time to get ready for Navarra next month. My last two races have both been on slicks in the rain”¦fifth in the GP of Valencia at the end of last season and now this. It’s just not something you practice!” Riders from 15 nations, including two from the USA, took part in the opening round of the Spanish Moto Championship in Jerez de la Frontera. American Tommy Aquino pitted to change to rain tires and finished 21st. Spanish Moto2 Championship Jerez de la Frontera April 1, 2012 Results 1.Daniel Rivas Spain 19:51.316 2. Kris McLaren Australia 20:01.262 3. Kenny Noyes USA 20:01.450 4.Alex Mariñelarena Spain 20:01.722 5.Hafiz Syahrin Malaysia 20:03.516 6.Guillermo Casas- Spain 20:16.643 7.Jordi Torres Spain 20:27.996 8.Lucas Mahias France 20:31.017 9.Russel Gomez Spain 20:32.991 10.Roman Ramos Spain 20:34.428 More, from a press release issued by JiR Moto2 Team: Difficult conditions lead to hard race for Team JiR Team JiR and their young rider Eric Granado had a tough but useful first Moto2 race in the Campeonato Español de Velocidad (CEV) series today. In changeable conditions, the 15-year-old Brazilian made some difficult tyre choices which eventually contributed to him finishing the race in 23rd place.However, the experience gained by riding his MotoBI in wet, dry and intermediate conditions will doubtless pay dividends when his Moto2 World Championship career begins at Silverstone in August. This weekend has seen Eric ride for the first time on wet tyres on a Moto2 machine and on Michelins his previous experience has been on the Dunlop tyres that are the control tyre for the Moto2 World Championship. Despite a crash on Friday and yesterday in qualifying, today’s tricky conditions did not catch Eric out. All of this is great experience for the young rider and he will take this to the next round of the CEV series on 20-22nd April at Circuito de Navarra Gianluca Montiron I do not think I have ever seen a race with such changeable conditions it was unforgettable in that respect. It was a wet race, then dry, then wet then dry again. I cannot remember a race like it. During the warm-up lap Eric decided to change to the wet tyre as he felt the dry tyre would be too dangerous for him to use, but the front-row all had dry tyres on. After four laps the conditions were dry and due to an incident the race was red flagged. With everyone on dry tyres, the race re-started only for the rain to fall again after two laps, so Eric came in for wet tyres while the leaders carried on with the dry tyre. Obviously with this pit-stop his position was not so high at the flag, but this was a difficult race with changeable conditions. The more experienced riders had more feeling in these conditions but I know Eric will learn from this weekend and we can move forward. We know conditions like these will be seen in the World Championship so it is all useful experience. Eric Granado Final postion: 23rd That was a hard race in which I had to make some difficult decisions. Maybe if I had more experience I would have stayed out longer on the same tyre to get more feeling in such conditions, but my overwhelming feeling was not to crash again. I think in future I will not be so conservative at the start. On the warm-up lap I could see some big wet patches on the track and I didn’t want to take any big risks, so asked for the wet tyres. To be honest, after two crashes this weekend I just didn’t want to take any big risks. It has all been a great experience for me, I want to thank the team for their help and I’m looking forward to the next race where I hope the conditions are more consistent.