Circuit des Amériques, America, April 11th 2022 - In his fourth race for Elf Marc VDS Racing, Tony Arbolino took his first win in Grand Prix racing’s intermediate class. A victory which promises more to come.
In good form in Argentina, the KTM riders struggled a week later in Texas at the Circuit of the Americas. Raul Fernandez and Remy Gardner finished the fourth race of the season in nineteenth and twentieth positions. The Australian suffered all weekend on the bumpy Austin track. With his wrist still fragile and his machine still difficult to change direction quickly, Gardner found himself in trouble after six or seven laps. "I wasn't feeling good physically and had to grit my teeth all the way to the end to be able to finish the race.” His team-mate finished just ahead of him after a long battle with Andrea Dovizioso and Franco Morbidelli.
Tony Arbolino took another step forward at the Circuit of the Americas with an debut impressive win. Fourth on the grid, the Elf rider quickly got past pole sitter Cameron Beaubier and set off to chase after Celestino Vietti and Aron Canet. Taking advantage of the two leaders’ falls, Arbolino took control of the race and never let go. “The work has paid off," declared the Italian. “It has been an incredible winter of training and testing with the team. The result is there. Let's keep up the momentum now for the rest of the season.” The Elf Marc VDS rider's first Moto2 win sees him move up to third in the overall standings. Starting from ninth on the grid, Sam Lowes saw his race come to an abrupt end on the first lap when Chantra crashed into him. “I'm obviously disappointed, but this kind of collision is part of racing," commented the Brit. “It's a shame because we had made some changes to the bike in the warm up and I felt I could have had a good race.”
Another solid weekend for Deniz Öncü, with the Elf rider never out of the top five the whole weekend. Leading at the end of the first lap, after a great start from the second row of the grid, Öncü battled in the leading group until the last kilometres of a race, finally won by Jaume Masia. Fifth at the chequered flag, the Turkish rider consolidates his fifth place overall. After a crash in the warm up, his team-mate made up for it in the race by finishing fourteenth and scoring two more points.
