A solid eighth for Lecuona in Race 2, as Vierge crashes out while battling for sixth in Portimão

“I want to take the positives from the weekend because I think we were able to make a good step forward. We were competitive and consistently inside the top ten in qualifying and in every race, including today’s Sprint, where everyone was pushing to the limit. We had enough speed and pace to finish inside the top nine. In Race 2 I felt really good. I came into brief contact with another rider on the first lap and lost a position, but once I passed him again, I think I had the pace to fight at least with Van der Mark. Unfortunately, I made a small mistake at turn one that cost me the race. Luckily, I walked away totally unhurt, but of course I’m a bit frustrated. I want to apologise to the team because we deserved a better result in Race 2, but I’m already looking forward to the next round and to bringing this level of competitiveness there as well.”

“I’m done, but I’m happy. As I said already many times this weekend, this was the first time since October that I was able to ride without pain. I’ve worked really hard on myself in recent months, both physically, to recover as soon as possible, and mentally, to manage the situation. Everyone around me has supported me and helped me to come to Portimão ready to ride. Scoring points in all three races and finishing in the top ten is something I can be pleased with, and I’m happy with how I’ve managed everything this weekend. On Friday I finished maybe sixteenth, I don’t even really remember, but I didn’t care. I just focused on the work we had to do in the garage. In this regard, I want to thank the team, Honda and everyone around me, because they didn’t put any pressure on me. On the contrary, they encouraged me to take things step by step, giving me an added sense of calm. I’m truly grateful for that, as it helped me a lot. From there, we improved session by session – P11 in qualifying and again P11 in Race 1, even though we knew there was still something more to gain with the setup. Then in this morning’s warm-up, we found that little extra, and in the Sprint Race I was actually surprised by our pace. Finishing P9, with all riders on track and no crashes, was a good result and highly motivating ahead of Race 2. Again, everything went well in the first part of Race 2, where I was running comfortably enough in sixth when the red flag came out. In the restarted race there were some more battles, and I had to take a few small risks, but I wanted to finish the race. I brought home P8, which is still a result I will not complain about after five months with no real track action. I want to go into the next round with exactly this same mentality and continue working with my team just as we did here.”