The “Riola Sand” circuit of Riola Sardo in Sardinia hosted, with good weather conditions, the 2023 Edition of the Grand Prix of Sardinia, the second round of the season of the FIM Motocross World Championship.
Sixteenth in the time practice, Ben Watson (Beta RX 450) closed the MXGP qualifying session in seventeenth position. The English rider found himself far from the top positions at the start of race one but managed to make a comeback to fourteenth position. Ben also had to make a successful comeback in Race 2, which saw him finish in thirteenth position. These placings allowed him to finish twelfth in the Overall of the day and maintain his fifteenth place in the Championship standings.
The deep sand of the Riola track did not help Alessandro Lupino (Beta RX 450). After scoring the eighteenth fastest time in timed practice, Alessandro finished nineteenth in the qualifying session, a position that he also confirmed in Race 1, when he unfortunately crashed. On the other hand, Alessandro defended himself well in the second race, which he closed in fifteenth position. Eight are the points gained by the rider of the Fiamme Oro, who is ranked eighteenth in the championship.
In a couple of weeks, the MRT Racing Team Beta will be racing at Frauenfeld in the Grand Prix of Switzerland, the third round of the FIM Motocross World Championship 2023.
Ben Watson: “I am happy with how this weekend went even though my results were below my expectations. On Saturday morning, as soon as I entered the track, I was not immediately effective but I still tried my best to get a good position at the gate. During the warm-up I was not able to ride as I wanted, so I decided to put my hand to the suspension setting. In the first race it took me a few laps to adapt to the bike but after that I lapped with good times. In the final race I felt really confident on the bike and, despite an unlucky start, I made up a lot of positions. In the coming days we will continue to work to refine the setting of the bike and improve our placings.”
Alessandro Lupino: “The second GP of the season was very tough for me. On this type of terrain, I have always struggled a lot. On Saturday we worked together with the team to set up our bike in the best possible way. We didn’t work so much on pure speed, but to find a setting that would allow me to have a good pace. In fact, on Sunday things started to turn in the right direction and, despite the crash in race one while I was in thirteenth position, I was able to have a good pace that allowed me to stay close to the top group. This is a result that I had never managed to achieve in the past and which confirms that we have further improved the performance of our bike.”
