The French youngster scored an impressive victory in qualification but he never felt completely comfortable at the hillside Talavera de la Reina track where he had suffered a season-ending knee injury last year. Constantly changing track conditions as heavy showers rolled across the region on Saturday and Sunday was blessed with sunshine made it difficult to find optimal bike settings and Dylan settled for a secure second place in the opening moto after taking yet another holeshot aboard his KX250F-SR. The front brake was damaged at the start of race two when he was hit by another rider and, after quickly advancing from tenth to sixth, he had to battle his way up the leaderboard a second time after a crash. He eventually finished the moto fifth to narrowly miss the overall GP podium but has now advanced to ninth in the series points standings despite missing four GPs earlier in the season.
Vsevolod Brylyakov of Monster Energy DRT Kawasaki held a confident fifth place until he crashed on the final lap of qualification and the resultant poorer gate pick made it difficult to repeat the performance on race day. Initially thirteenth in race one he moved forward to ninth at the finish but a crash at the second corner of race two restricted him to eighteenth at the chequered flag. The Russian is now tenth in the series standings.
Petar Petrov's recent misfortune continued in Spain. Even though he was still nursing a painful thumb injury the Bulgarian posted top five times in both practice sessions, but a collision at the second corner of the qualifying race left him chasing through from the back of the field. Yet more misfortune awaited the teammate of Ferrandis as he crashed after recovering to nineteenth and dislocated a shoulder. Bravely defying the pain he battled his way from eighteenth to tenth in race one before issues forced his retirement and a small crash as he held down twelfth in race two meant another recovery from seventeenth to thirteenth. He retains sixth place in the series standings.
Dylan Ferrandis: “It was a tough weekend on a track where I have some bad memories after my knee injury here last year. It was very difficult to find the best settings for the bike, as the weather and the track conditions were continually changing on both Saturday and Sunday. In the first race I had some difficulty with the front fork settings and couldn’t keep the lead; I didn’t want to take risks as I got some arm pump so I just concentrated on securing my second position. We made some changes for the second race and the feeling was better, but I got a bad start and in the first corner another rider hit me and damaged my front brake; I was back to sixth behind Tonkov when I lost the front wheel and crashed, and then recovered to fifth. I had a better feeling in the second race, but I'm frustrated that I just missed the podium.”
Vsevolod Brylyakov: “Saturday started pretty good for me, as I got a good start in the qualifying race and was fourth for most of the race, but I crashed on the last lap. I was disappointed, but I knew that I had the speed and could expect similar results on Sunday. But Sunday didn’t go to plan; my gate pick was bad and I was thirteenth at the start to finish ninth which was not so bad. But the second moto went completely wrong; I crashed in the second corner and could only get back to eighteenth. I never felt comfortable and every time I tried to push it got worse. I'm not really happy with the result but all of my team is supporting me; we’re working hard to get the best of my riding and I’m sure that better results will follow.”
Petar Petrov: “The luck is not really on my side at the moment. in Germany I broke my finger and had to ride with a lot of pain in Italy, so I came here with no practice as my thumb needed to recover. It was still sore but on Saturday I was feeling really good and posted top five results in the practice sessions but then in the qualification race I crashed with a couple of guys in the second corner. From that moment my weekend went wrong; I had a second crash later and dislocated my shoulder, so I had to ride with a lot of pain today. When it happened on Saturday I thought that the season was finished, but I still tried and it went OK even if I had the worst gate pick. I had pulled through to tenth when we had some issues with the bike in race one, then in the second moto I was twelfth when I had a small crash.”