Race Report – World Championship Round 3 Fermo, Italy
Team STR’s Matiss Karro is now in 15th place in the FIM Motocross World Championship after a 12th place in the Italian GP this weekend (Saturday 28 & Sunday 29 April).
After crashing out of the previous weekend’s Bulgarian GP, Karro was keen to make up for that at Fermo, Italy, and did so with a finish that puts him on 35 points in this year’s World Championship Title Race.
STR teammate Nez Parker went into the weekend full of confidence having taken his first points of this season in Bulgaria but a crash near the end of the second race prevented him from adding to his points total.
Qualifying:
Both Karro and Parker struggled on the tough Fermo track, managing only 20th and 24th respectively. It looked like race day was going to be a tough affair.
Race 1:
Karro flew out of the gate in 6th but after not being able to ride all week due to last week’s crash, he didn’t have the pace to run at the front, soon finding himself down in 19th. With two thirds of the race gone, Karro rallied and made his way through the pack to finish 16th, just missing out on 15th place by one hundredth of a second.
Parker was finding the track extremely tough and couldn’t find any kind of rhythm and eventually finished in 23rd.
Race 2:
Both Karro and Parker made good starts with Karro in 10th and Parker in 17th with both looking much more confident. Parker was making excellent progress until he drifted too far to the right and, as with his teammate the previous week, landed on a hay-bale resulting in an excursion over the bars and a DNF. Karro was fighting for a top ten finish for most of the race and looked as though he may achieve that until a lapper hampered his progress and he lost the tow on Rui Concalves.
Nevertheless, he finished in 12th place and 12th overall for the weekend which moved him up to 15th in the Championship.
Nez Parker commented “I’ve never ridden a track anything like this before. I found it really hard to get any sort of rhythm in qualifying and the first race. In the second race I felt totally different and was going really well until I made the mistake and that cost me a chance of some points.”
Matiss Karro was upbeat following his 12th place overall finish, “I’m really pleased with how I performed this weekend and it was great to get some more points on the board. Fermo isn’t a track I am at all fond of, but I had two great starts and two solid races. My first start was amazing but I just didn’t have the pace. I’m happy with the result though and I’m improving with each race. It’s great to be in 15th place in the Championship at this stage, a fantastic achievement.”
Team Manager, Steve Turner added “This track is very difficult but I’m happy with the progress both riders made over the course of the weekend. I was worried that Matiss would find it particularly tricky after his fall at the Bulgarian GP but he proved me wrong and had two fantastic performances out there.”
“Nez struggled to get to grips with the track but came out fighting in the second race and looked like he was going to have the ride of his life until he crashed out. I was impressed with how he attacked the track and am hoping he will take that aggression into the next race at Guadalajara in Mexico.”
