Gino Rea suffered another frustrating afternoon after finishing the Czech Republic Grand Prix down in 24th place. The Briton, who’s only scored a solitary point this year, was inside the top ten on Friday but a crash in qualifying left him back on the ninth row and he couldn’t recover in the race.
Rea did make it into the top twenty but crashed in his attempts to make further progress and the Gresini rider apologised to the team for the failure to convert practice promise into points.
“It is hard to describe how frustrated I am to be honest. We have shown the pace here to be in the top ten or fifteen and after yesterday’s disappointment in qualifying we had some very different track conditions to contend with today and that brought on some big problems with our set-up, especially front end chatter. I kept saving it on my elbow or knee but I was pushing so much to stay with the guys in front a crash was always going to happen. Even after the crash the bike felt better towards the end than it did at the start so we know we could have been fighting for a decent position. So I’m sorry to the team but I hope I have shown them I have the potential to deliver the results they deserve if we can keep working.”
Team Manager Fausto Gresini, who called Rea’s future into question after Mugello, was far from happy once again and kept his words short and sweet.
“The same old story. Unfortunately despite some positive signs in practice the race result didn’t come. It goes without saying that I am bitterly disappointed and I don’t have much to add to that.”
