Xavier Simeon apologised to his Tech 3 team after crashing out of the British Grand Prix when a top ten result looked more than likely.
The Belgian showed promising form in the wet warm-up session by going quickest and made a great start in similar conditions to move up from 18th on the grid to tenth by the end of the first lap.
Simeon then moved up to eighth as riders fell off in front of him but the conditions then caught him out too, and the 21 year old was gutted after missing out on the chance to repay his crew for helping him progress on the Mistral 610.
“Again I had a good start, I was 10th after the first lap. But I could not see anything, so I was very careful, maybe a little bit too careful. I did not want to crash as the conditions were very difficult today. Then some riders passed me. I could not see the braking point so I could not brake as hard as I wanted. Then I was in 8th position and I started to push a little bit as I could see other riders coming from behind. I pushed too much at the end and lost the rear tyre the result was that I crashed.”
“I am so disappointed because this morning I was fastest in Warm up and that gave me so much confidence I could finish in the Top 10 today. I knew I could have been faster than the riders in front of me. Unfortunately it was not meant to be today, but with all my improvements in the last races I am confident enough to try it again next race. I am sorry for my team as they work very hard every minute to improve the bike for me. We can show our progress, but the final result was not as we wanted it or deserved it.”
Team manager Herve Poncharal refused to criticise his rider with conditions proving so difficult and is confident that his upturn in form will continue next time out at Assen.
“Although the weekend did not finish the way we would have liked it, as Xavier had a good possibility of scoring some points, we have to see the positive side and all through the weekend, in the dry and in the wet, Xavier was fast. He was the fastest in today’s Warm up. This made him and us very confident, but under these conditions it is really easy to make a mistake and it is difficult to blame him for that. Race after race he is getting better and better. Hopefully we can continue in Assen like we did here. I hope we can get some more points. Xavier is improving a lot and I am very happy about that. I am sorry for the result of today, but I don’t think he was the only one crashed out there.”
