Yesterday’s Moto2 race at Catalunya was marred by two horrific looking crashes, the first occured on lap 6 of 23 and involved Interwetten’s Thomas Luthi and last year’s Catalunya winner Yuki Takahashi on the Gresini Moriwaki, the second was between Kenan Sofuoglu and Julian Simon.
Luthi’s rear Dunlop tire decided to step out and his Suter wanting to throw him into a highside, but the Swiss rider just held on to the side of his machine, but was then hit by Takahashi who was coming up fast and had nowhere else to go.
The incident could have had more dire consequences when they slid across the track, than just a few bruises for both riders.
“Bad luck in a Grand Prix to forget.
First of all we had trouble finding the right set-up and then we got wiped out by a crash early in the race,” said the Japanese rider.
“Fortunately I wasn’t hurt by the impact other than a blow to my backside.
We will fight back next week in England.
”Here’s Luthi’s take on his brief race and incident:“I had a poor start.
The bike made a wheelie and I had to cut the gas, which made me lose a few positions.
But then I was riding within the pursuing group of riders quite comfortably.
I saw that Stefan Bradl didn’t manage to break away and I didn’t think of attacking yet.
But then the bike went sideways anyway, without any pre-warning.
I had a highsider and landed somehow back on the bike.
Then Yuki Takahashi touched me and we both went down.
But even without him running into me I don’t think I would have saved it.
I didn’t get hurt in the crash, which is good.
But now we have to try to solve the small problems that contributed to this crash.
I am always running close to the top, in practice as well as in the races, but I have to take man risks to be that fast.
We have to think about changes to the bike’s geometry to make the bike easier to ride!”
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