Solid qualification for Fernandez at Villars-sous-Ecot
Villars sous EcotTeam HRC’s Ruben Fernandez put in a solid qualification race at the rutted hillside track of Villars-sous-Ecot in France, taking sixth place and giving himself a good opportunity for more when action resumes tomorrow for the GP-scoring motos.
Team HRC’s Ruben Fernandez put in a solid qualification race at the rutted hillside track of Villars-sous-Ecot in France, taking sixth place and giving himself a good opportunity for more when action resumes tomorrow for the GP-scoring motos.
Returning to the calendar after an absence of over five years, the weather leading up the event in hadn’t been great so a lot of work went into pushing large quantities of mud off the racing surface. This left a soft track that soon cut-up and produced a variety of ruts from all the different classes riding on it over the course of the day.
Taking his time in free and timed practice, Fernandez wasn’t in a rush to put in his hotlap and when he did drop the hammer, he produced the 11th fastest time. Normally, this might be cause for concern, but with knowledge that the start-position wasn’t important for this first turn, he lined up with confidence from previous gate-drops that he would still be able to round the corner inside the top five. And that’s exactly what the Honda CRF450R rider managed to do, sweeping through the field and getting as high as third briefly early-on.
At that stage, everything was looking positive but the tricky track soon started to pose problems and rather than risk a fall, which happened to numerous other riders, the #70 backed it down a notch and made sure he’d finish a clean race. This strategy almost paid-off with a top five finish, as he was less than a second from making that happen, but instead he picked up five more championship points and heads into tomorrow’s races hoping that the track will harden up a bit more, giving him a better shot at continuing his good recent form and standing on the podium for what would be the third time this year.
Definitely not an easy day today, with the track really getting rutted up and providing a real challenge to pick the right lines. I knew that gate-pick wasn’t so important so although I would have preferred a better finish than 11th in timed practice, I still knew it would be okay. Once again I got a good start and was fighting it out for top three early on, but I lost my rhythm a bit and rather than make too big of a mistake I just regrouped and found a pace that was a bit easier to maintain. In the end I closed right back up to fifth but time ran out so I finished sixth which still sets me up nicely for tomorrow’s motos.
We knew when we arrived that conditions would be tough. There was a lot of mud around and although they did a good job clearing it, we knew from previous races here that it would create these really long, deep ruts. Ruben rode well in the qualifying race and we are happy with sixth. There are always things to work on and improve but he showed a mature side and didn’t push it too much, and actually improved his standings in the championship so we will take the positives and work on making things even better for tomorrow.
