Hector Barbera (Reale Avintia Racing) left Austria without any points after a complicated race, suffering with rear tyre grip as many did after the initial laps. Added to a difficult launch off the line, it made for a complicated day – but the Spaniard did battle Jack Miller (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) and Scott Redding (Octo Pramac Racing) before losing out later on.
Hector Barbera, P17: "At the start the rider ahead got bogged down and when I went to the left Pol was coming faster, we touched and we were lucky not to fall off. I saw that he retired after that, I don’t know if that was because the bike had some problem after the touch, but if so, I’m sorry about that. Then I could recover the positions I’d lost. I had a good fight with Miller and Redding, but the rear tyre dropped after seven laps and I started to have a lot of spinning and the bike was not moving. We don’t know if the increase in temperature affected the performance of the tyres, because we hadn’t had that problem all weekend and on Sunday everything was complicated."