At a surprisingly sunny Octo British Grand Prix, Karel Abraham (Pull&Bear Aspar Team) took home some important points for his 2017 MotoGP™ season tally, crossing the line 13th at the chequered flag. Qualifying P19, the Czech rider gained several places in the second half of the baking British GP, making up time well during the final stages to finish just behind EG 0,0 Marc VDS rider Tito Rabat – by only 0.3 seconds.
Abraham and the Aspar Team confirmed just last week they will continue in MotoGP™ together for 2018 after a solid performance on the Ducati GP15 - including a career best finish of 7th at the Dutch GP earlier this year.
Karel Abraham, P13: “I'm pretty happy with the race, because after a not-so-great qualifying session yesterday we got a good start today. We had a good race; of course, there are a few negative points, and I had some shaking on the straight that we'd already experienced over the past few days. When the bike was shaking and I wanted to brake going into the corner, there was no braking. It happened to me twice, and I was very close to having a very bad crash. I must have lost around 5 seconds in these two incidents. From then on, when the bike was shaking on the straight I tapped the brake with my little finger to pump it up. I felt at the start of the race that I had problems keeping up with Barberá and the others with a soft tyre, but in the middle of the race this turned around and I felt stronger. I'm really happy with 13th, although I was just 0.3 seconds off the rider ahead of me. I think half a lap more would have been enough to pass him.”