Moto2: ‘No better start’ for returning Luthi

Returning Moto2 rider Tom Luthi says that his first race back in the class after an ill-fated season in MotoGP couldn’t have gone better, after the Swiss rider was able to hunt down race winner Lorenzo Baldassarri and challenge him for the victory. Eventually coming home second, Luthi is heading home from Qatar delighted with his performance.

“It could not have been better to start the season this way to be honest. The victory would have been sweeter though, as I had the pace for it. I did not have a really good feeling with the front of the bike from the beginning. I had problems to find the rhythm and speed, but later on it went quite well. I want to thank my team for their great work this weekend. To overtake during the last lap would have been possible, but it was too much of a risk. The conditions have been perfect this evening. I struggled with the warmer conditions during warm up, but with the cooler air and less wind it was almost perfect tonight. I knew that if the conditions would be like that tonight, we could really do it. I am now looking forward to the next race.”

And while teammate Marcel Schrotter might not have been as content as Luthi with third place despite wrestling it from Remy Gardner by a mere 0.002 at the line, he’s still heading back to Germany positive about the start to the season.

“I was really lucky today. At the end of the race I had some chattering problems and I didn’t want to make a mistake during the first race of the season. Of course I tried to close up to Baldassarri, but in the last two laps, when Tom closed up, I was not able to go faster anymore. But nevertheless this was a great start to the season. It is better you take the third place home than to risk too much and crash at the end. It’s a fantastic result for the team, but I am still a little bit disappointed, as I was strong all weekend, even with used tyres I was able to go fast. But anyway, I think we can really be satisfied with this result.”