Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Franco Morbidelli finished  a long and difficult Austrian Prix in 19th position with his hard riding teammate Tom Luthi in 22nd.

A perfect summer’s day at a sunny Spielberg saw the Austrian Grand Prix raced in warm conditions after practice and qualifying was by disturbed by rain and cool temperatures.

Two wet practice sessions cost MotoGP rookies Morbidelli and Luthi in terms of set-up time for their Honda RC213vs at the 4.3km venue.

Morbidelli’s situation was not helped because of three place grid penalty that forced him start from 19th and a tyre choice that did allow him to exploit his full potential to challenge for points.

In the 28 lap race Luthi never got into a fast rhythm having a lost valuable dry track time in practice. Despite being slowed by an inexplicable lack of tyre temperature the Swiss rider’s final position was just 1.3s out of a top 20 finish.

Franco Morbidelli: 19th, +40.171
“I am quite happy with my performance but unfortunately I made the wrong tyre choice. I chose the soft rear and from the beginning I had less grip than the other riders in my group. Towards the end of the race the grip dropped even more so it was not good decision to go with the soft. But I’m happy with my riding and the performance of the bike and look forward to test coming up in Misano before the Silverstone race.”

Tom Luthi: 22nd, +54.355
“It was difficult weekend and one to forget because I never really found a good rhythm in the race and get temperature into the tyres even though it was a hot day. We need to check what the problem was for this and move to the next race in Silverstone.”