Following a month's break, round ten of the MotoGP World Championship took place at the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the USA this weekend but for the Penrith-based PBM MotoGP Team, it was another disappointing weekend at the Red Bull US Grand Prix.
After a run of poor results at Sachsenring in Germany and then at the previous round at Laguna Seca, Colombian Hernandez and Ulsterman Michael Laverty were hoping to add to both their own World Championship points scores and to improve their CRT and Manufacturer placings.
Hernandez, from Medelln, on the Rapid Solicitors and Minxflix.com-sponsored Aprilia ART started well with another 14th place in FP1 and was never outside the top 20 in all sessions. Laverty meanwhile, from Toome in County Antrim, on the Rapid Solicitors and Minxflix.com-sponsored PBM machine gradually improved to post a best placing of 18th in FP4 and in qualifying, Laverty was placed eighth with Hernandez in 11th.
In the race, both Hernandez and Laverty got reasonable starts with Yonny up to 16th in the early stages as Michael gave chase inside the top 20 but with ten laps to go, Hernandez suffered a technical problem which caused him to retire leaving Laverty to bring the machine home to a safe 18th place at the end of the 27 lap race.
Hernandez dropped to 20th overall in the MotoGP World Championship standings as a result although Laverty maintained his 23rd place in his debut season. In the Claiming Rules Teams (CRT) class, Hernandez now holds seventh with Laverty in ninth whereas PBM occupy eighth in the Constructors Championship and 12th in the Teams Championship in their debut season with their brand new British-built machine.
Michael Laverty: "Indy was difficult, I struggled in the early laps again following a good start, my pace got better mid race when the fuel load came down but the guys in front had pulled too big a gap. It was a lonely race in the end to finish 18th. We have some ideas following the information we gathered this weekend on how to take some steps forward with our base chassis settings. I know the circuits coming up so fingers crossed it should make things easier."
Yonny Hernandez: "I am unhappy not to have finished the race as I felt good all weekend and had a good pace. The bike was working OK in the beginning of the race but seemed to lose power and then stopped. I am now thinking only about Brno where I hope to have a strong race."
Phil Borley, Technical Director: "It has been a difficult weekend here at Indianapolis that for Yonny finished with a DNF and Michael an 18th place. We are still diagnosing the reason for Yonny's bike stopping and expect to have an answer and solution for next week's Brno race. Michael did not have a front end set up that gave him the confidence to push at the limit so we will test some different settings in Brno."
Paul Bird, Team Owner: "We seem to be having a bit of a hard time in MotoGP over these past few rounds and things certainly haven't gone our way. We always knew this year would be tough and I'm taking some consolation that at least we haven't any crashed motorbikes to repair this weekend! We need to start bouncing back soon as Brno and Silverstone are two very important races for us and we need to be up with the leading CRT riders."
