Guintoli and Lowes explain race two crash

Sylvain Guintoli’s weekend in California was solid with a seventh place finish in race one, having ran in the top five at one point, but his outing in race two was short lived. A first lap crash with Alex Lowes saw the Frenchman in the wrong place at the wrong time and he ran into Lowes as the Englishman entered the pits.

“In race two, the start was OK but on lap two I was lining up to pass into the last corner when [Alex] Lowes entered the pit lane without any signal and I crashed,” said Guintoli. “It was a really, really upsetting way to finish the weekend, but we’ll just have to come back fighting in Sepang in two weeks.”

When asked after the race about the incident Lowes said that he felt he had a puncture:

“The second race I was fully fired up for a good fight to try and get involved at the front but immediately on the first lap it felt like I had a front puncture, the bike was folding everywhere and I had no choice but to come into the pit,” said Lowes.

PATA Honda technical co-ordinator, Pieter Breddels, summed it up as bad luck for Guintoli.

“Sylvain had a great start in race one but he had to drop the pace a little bit and finished seventh, which was OK, but we all want to be closer to the front, of course,” said Breddels. “On the second lap of race two he collided with Alex Lowes who decided to pit when Sylvain was on the left-hand side, which was the wrong side for him. That was a very unfortunate way to finish the weekend.”