Manuel Gonzalez refused to be cowed after enduring one of the season’s most embarrassing moments when he stood up to celebrate Moto2 victory at Silverstone even though one lap of the race remained.
A miscalculation of the lap count and an inability to see the lap-counter display on the start-finish straight meant the Spaniard miscalculated the race distance.
“A few laps earlier, I’d been looking for the lap-counter display at the finish line but couldn’t see it,” he explained. “So, I thought it was the last lap, and I passed Dani [Holgado] in the final sector by braking really hard. But he was fighting really hard, too. I wasn’t 100 percent sure if it was the last lap or not, so I crossed the finish line at full throttle, even though I was already celebrating a little bit. The bad luck was that Dani touched the sprocket and the exhaust.”
Even though he quickly recognized his mistake, Gonzalez was hamstrung by his bent exhaust. He dropped down to 14th as a result. Yet he insisted it was a positive outing.
“Even though we struggled, we were one of the strongest packages and had a chance for victory. That’s why I’m not disappointed; I’m actually happy with our overall performance.”CN
