Tony Arbolino put together an inspired comeback to secure a strong 5^th place in the punishing Malaysian heat after ending lap 1 in 10^th, while Filip Salac took 15^th.

• After two days of intense heat, temperatures were even higher for Sunday’s penultimate Moto2 race of the year in Malaysia, with Elf Marc VDS Racing Team riders Tony Arbolino and Filip Salac racing in ambient temperatures of 35 degrees.
• A bumper crowd of 88,571 people were in attendance at the Sepang International Circuit on Sunday to watch the penultimate race of the season.

/// TONY ARBOLINO – 5^th

• Starting 6^th on the grid, Tony was caught up in the 1^st lap melee. After several aggressive moves from other riders, the Italian ended lap 1 in 10^th.
• Tony soon recovered to fight for 6^th with Deniz Oncu. And after he dispatched with the Turkish rider, he began catching the fight for the podium. After passing Marcos Ramirez for 5^th on the penultimate lap, he finished just 1.6s back of 3rd.
• This result means Tony is 10^th in the World Championship standings with 146 points.

“Today fifth place was the best result I could have got”

“It was a shame to start the way we did. I didn’t get off the line so well so this brought me a bit of bad luck in the first corner. Also, I was fighting a lot with the bike in the race. Today fifth place was the best result I could have got. Anything better wasn’t possible. I’m so happy with my performance and the fightback I did. The bike was working really well but we were just missing one really important thing, which was a bit of stability. It meant I wasn’t feeling perfect in these hot conditions. Obviously, in cooler conditions it’s different. But when it’s like this we need to take care for the future. We will try again at the final race, where I’ll aim to finish the year on a high.”

/// FILIP SALAC – 15^th

• Starting 10^th on the grid, Filip was boxed in at Turn 1 and lost a few places before ending lap 1 in 13^th.
• The Czech rider then started to experience issues when he was at full lean angle of his bike, and couldn’t accelerate as he wanted in the stifling heat. This limited Filip to 15^th place.
• Filip is now 17^th in the World Championship with 62 points.

“I was missing a lot of edge grip”

“The result is a real shame as we had a good weekend here up until today and the feeling with the bike was good. I was expecting to be fighting higher up than I was. But from lap four of the race, I was missing a lot of edge grip. When I touched the gas, I had to wait so long before I could pick the bike up and properly accelerate. It was quite frustrating and really limited my performance. We need to check what happened and make sure that it never happens again. Thanks to the team for the great job done and permanent support.”