Red Bull Rookies round up from Austria with focus on the ANZACs

2023 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup
Round Six – Spielberg, Austria

Qualifying

Rico Salmela topped qualifying in Spielberg ahead of Max Quiles and Angel Piqueras to claim pole. The 15-year-old Finn was in superb form and looking for his first victory of the season.

Track conditions changed several times through the day, dry for FP1, wet for FP2 and while Qualifying started dry it started to rain after the first 5 laps.  Jacob Roulstone was the top Aussie in sixth on the grid, 0.722s off pole.

Jacob Roulstone

“I’m quite happy and yet a little bit disappointed because when the rain came it really wasn’t too much and I wanted to press on but I kept catching people going slowly on the racing line so I couldn’t improve my lap, they were just not considerate. Still, 6th is not too bad, good starting position for 2 races. The bike is really good, a decent set-up. I think we could have a breakaway group of about 5, hopefully with me in it. I don’t think it will be a huge group because there isn’t the long slipstream run up to turn 2. We’ll see.”

Young Kiwi Cormac Buchanan rounded out the top-10 on the grid, with just 0.2s separating seventh through 12th. Carter Thompson qualified 20th, starting from the seventh row.

Race One

Álvaro Carpe was all but perfect from lights to flag and the 16-year-old Spaniard scored his first Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup victory in Spielberg.

Points leader Angel Piqueras was denied another win but grabbed second from pole man Rico Salmela in a great last-lap battle that could have gone either way.

The trio were clearly the strongest, Max Quiles could do no better than hang on to them as they pulled away from the rest of the pack, settling for fourth.

Álvaro Carpe

“I think it was the best race of my life. I am really happy, I pushed on every lap and was leading all the way. In the Qualifying I was riding alone and I knew that I did not need to follow anyone. The bike was great all through Friday and I was very confident going into the race. It was great fun to ride. In my training, I ride so much with the old tyres so even though with the higher temperatures today the bike was sliding a bit that did not worry me at all. I am used to push hard when the bike is sliding and I think that this is the result. Coming to the last lap I just pushed even harder, I thought the riders behind would try and pass so I just went harder than ever in the last lap.”

Marcus Ruda was a lonely fifth, and Cormac Buchanan a lonely sixth, with the field quite spread out by the flag.

Cormac Buchanan – P6

“It was a good race. The most important thing for me was just to get a good start, try and make as many places up as early as I could. It was quite nice because I knew I had the pace to be up the field, me and Marcus Ruda were working together and we closed in but in the last laps when the rear tyre started to drop off I lacked a little bit. I think tomorrow in cooler conditions in the morning it should be a bit better and it is great to be back in the pointy end of the race. It makes a big difference to get a good result on merit. I didn’t know I had a long lap penalty until I saw it on my dash on the last lap so I just kept pushing, hoping I had enough of a gap to those behind. When Marcos (Ruda) came past me it was really important to stay with him and I was able to do that.”

Carter Thompson finished 19th, while Jacob Roulstone high sided out of the race on turn three of the first lap.

Carter Thompson – P19

“After yesterday in qualifying not putting down a very good lap before the rain came that meant I started from P20, which is not ideal. The first few laps I made a few positions up to P16, then I was catching the group in front of me, but with five laps to go made a mistake and dropped off the group, losing a number of positions and ended up P19. On the bright side I did make a big step with my lap times so there are still positives..”

Race One Results

Race Two

Angel Piqueras was back to his winning ways on Sunday morning, picking up his 10th Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup career win in superb style.

The 16-year-old Spaniard stole first from Saturday’s victor Álvaro Carpe with Rico Salmela flashing across the line just behind for a double third.

Angel Piqueras

“I’m happy to equal the wins total, in Misano I will try to be the best,” laughed the Cup winner after his 8th win of the season that matches Bo Bendsneyder’s score from 2015. Piqueras won 2 races last year so has now matched Karel Hanika’s total of 10 from 2012 & 13. This race was so fast, Salmela and Carpe were pushing a lot, I had to push hard also. We went for the taller gearing today, that helped when I had the slipstream, I needed that. On the last lap, I pushed, coming to the end I knew I really only had one chance, the last corner is not the place, I went for it the corner before and it worked.”

Even more intense than Saturday, it was an eight KTM battle for the lead. Max Quiles ran off track from the lead group early and went for a trip through the gravel which left him battling back from last to eighth.

Behind the leading trio were Marcos Ruda, Ruche Moodley and Lorenz Luciano, in fourth through sixth, while Jacob Roulstone held off Maximo Quiles for seventh.

Carter Thompson also had a much improved second race, claiming 14th.

Carter Thompson – P14

“Didn’t get the best start got boxed in and stuck behind some riders in the first few corners losing a lot of ground. Once I got clear I started putting in some good lap times moving up and ended in P14. Poor qualifying made this weekend a lot harder than it should have been but I ended up with good lap times, learnt a lot and some more points. Now back to train hard and get ready for Misano. See you there.”

Cormac Buchanan had his second very competitive ride of the weekend, leading briefly but slid off when the front end tucked at the chicane on lap 14.

Cormac Buchanan – DNF

“It was great to lead my first Rookies Cup race in the dry. I made probably the best start of my career and that was a big help. It was weird because in the warm-up lap, the bike didn’t feel that great but I knew it was just because everything was cold, my body was cold and as the race went on I just kind of settled into a really fast rhythm and I was getting ready for the last 2 or 3 laps to try and get back to the front which I felt really comfortable doing. But unfortunately, just one mistake meant that I was down.”

Race Two Results

Red Bull Rookies Championship Points

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