Lorenzo Fellon scored the first point of his career in the Moto3 world championship in Austin (15th). The boss of the SIC58 Squadra Corse team, Paolo Simoncelli, looks back on the weekend of the Frenchman as well as that of his teammate Riccardo Rossi (9th), in a text translated by us.
Paolo Simoncelli:
We went from humid heat in Indonesia to feisty Argentina and then into the wild and changeable weather of Texas. Three long and tiring journeys, three completely different races in terms of weather and temperatures. Maybe that’s also why the performances were a bit erratic, like the weather. These trips represented a real challenge for us, we asked ourselves a lot of questions and faced difficult times, which almost led to a breakup on Saturday…
I had forgotten how hard it could be to work with very young riders who have just arrived in the world championship, like Fellon who does not yet have a history or Rossi who was trying to write a new one. I had forgotten about it after so many years with Tatsuki (Suzuki) and Antonelli, already Moto3 experts. It’s hard to line up the cards when the drivers are so different from one another. When you work with your son you know him, he grows with you. You learn how to work and manage race weekends, you automatically enter into symbiosis. Here, on the other hand, every year you have to deal with a driver you don’t know, with his own habits and routine, and you are also a stranger to him.
With Riccardo Rossi we had weeks of ups and downs, a bad race in Indonesia gave him pause and he had an incredible race in Argentina. He confessed to me that he thought: ‘Here I can make the podium!’, which had never crossed his mind until that moment. Unfortunately, in Texas a slide on Friday knocked him off course and put him on a tough two days.
Fellon is growing up, we’re trying to fix some of his riding issues, but on Saturday he infuriated me when he couldn’t do a lap in 15 minutes. For a driver in the world championship, not qualifying is not acceptable. Waiting for someone to follow him, hesitating in the box and losing the chance to get a good lap… I think that’s madness.
Saturday I was thinking of pulling the curtain and taking the first flight home, but after a briefing where I only needed a few words to reach the goal, I postponed any reasoned decision until Sunday… where, for the first time, I saw a calm Fellon on the grid, who was going to do something he loves: a race.
He finished in 15th place, scoring his first world championship point. I am satisfied with his race. I am also satisfied with that of Rossi, who started 17th and had a good race, finishing 9th with almost the fastest lap. It also increased my anger because he could and still should have been in the top-5.
And now, a break from the races outside Europe, we will stay closer to home and go to Portimao.
We’ve had intense weeks, we’ve hit rock bottom and it has to be the GP of getting back up and running in the best possible way, for both riders and all of us.
-PaoloSic58-
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