QMMF Racing Team rider Anthony West rode to ninth place in the Indianapolis Grand Prix on Sunday and celebrated a happy ending to a race that started with a nasty surprise.
West was within the main pack of riders when Switzerland’s Randy Krummenacher made a mistake and took West out with himself. West’s bike slid into Mattia Pasini, who was on the ground already after a crash of his own. Since Pasini lost consciousness for a while, the race was interrupted. As it turned out in the hospital of Indianapolis, the Italian got away without serious injuries.
After the restart with a shortened race distance of 16 laps, West was immediately on the pace again. Sixteenth after one lap, he worked his way towards the front, arriving in 10th position on lap six and in ninth place with three laps to go. With more race time and a little more engine speed, he could even have been able to battle it out with the three riders right in front of him.
Teammate Roman Ramos made a similar recovery from his difficulties in practice and his 34th starting position. After one lap in 27th position, he managed to hunt eight more riders down as the race went on and proudly finished in 19th position.
“I had already passed Randy Krummenacher some corners before and I was braking on my normal line into turn 10, when Randy was trying to pass me. He was clearly too fast, because I had been braking late myself. He lost control and hit me, so we both crashed. My bike went sliding into Pasini who was already laying on the track,” West explained after the race.
“After the restart, I managed to find a good rhythm, to pass a lot of other riders and to take a good result. It was a happy ending to a weekend that felt like a roller coaster ride.
“The first day was perfect, everything was good, the bike worked well, I was comfortable. The practice and qualifying was a disaster, I felt the bike was slow and that I didn’t have enough grip. Now with the race result, I am happy again, even though I am a little bit disappointed because I know I could have beaten the three riders that were in front of me.
“I felt so much better than them, but my bike was too slow. Even if I was in the slipstream, the others would pull away. With a little more speed, I could have been in front of Cortese. I could have been sixth, but the engine did not allow it. Our next engine change is scheduled for the next Grand Prix at Brno. I hope we will be lucky enough to get a faster one!” The Australian rider added.
The other QMMF rider, Ramos, said: “It was a complicated weekend for us. I started from last position on the grid, because we had a lot of set-up problems and I couldn’t do a fast lap in qualifying. Today in the warm-up, we found a little improvement on the bike and I felt a little better myself as far as my riding goes, so we managed to improve our lap times.
“In the race, I took advantage of these improvements and I managed to make up a lot of positions. I am happy with what we achieved, the team worked well and gave me a motorcycle that was good to ride. I hope we can continue to improve from now on, because we are too far behind in the championship, which is a situation that I don’t like at all. In the next races, will work hard to make up some positions, but for now I want to thank my team not only for improving my bike but also for encouraging me when I was in a dark mood about our lack of results!”