After the Grand Prix of The Americas, Jakub Kornfeil has managed to secure more points for DRIVE M7 SIC Racing Team at the Grand Prix de la República Argentina.
Kornfeil managed to get a good head start from the beginning of the race, where he managed to consistently lap 1m49s lap times. He initially held on to seventh place, but due to an unfortunate mistake at turn twelve, Kornfeil dropped to fifteenth position. He fought hard, but managed to finish the race in fourteenth position, just 2.3 seconds behind second place.
Zullfahmi Khairuddin managed a good start as well, and he managed to climb up eight positions before a mistake on lap two pushed him down to twentieth position.
Johan Stigefelt, Team Manager of the DRIVE M7 SIC Racing Team said, “Today we have had quite an up and down race. Both riders made a great start; Jakub immediately went to twelfth place but then he got pushed off by another rider and dropped back to eighteenth. He then had to start working his way back up again and he did great. He did very good lap times and was looking strong. He was in with the leading group fighting for second place but then he had a moment where he ran off the track and lost some ground from the front runners. From that point it was a little bit difficult for him to catch them again because he was no longer in the slip stream of the other riders. He lost a lot on the straight too. In the end he closed in again on the group and actually finished only about two seconds from second place, which is very good. He rode a good race and I’m happy with how he performed today. On the other side he said the bike was very slow on the straight, so he lost a lot of ground there and couldn’t pass any riders on the straight which makes it very difficult, so I’m a bit disappointed with that. We have to really check why this happened and work on it. On Fahmi’s side he made a great start and was up to twentieth in the first corner, but then he made a mistake and ran wide. He lost a lot of time at that point and dropped down to twenty eighth. From then it was impossible for him to really do anything. He was riding his way through but it was a very hard race for him. We know what the problem is; we had bad starting positions and this makes it very difficult. On the other hand, we can do better with Fahmi. He really needs to start to analyse and understand why he is not doing better and we as a team need to help him to do his best. Now we go back to Europe and I’m looking forward to Jerez and seeing what we can do there. In the races we are competitive but we must improve our qualifying.”
“Today I had the best start in my career; in the first lap I was up to twenty. In the second lap I made a mistake. I pushed a lot the rear brake and went off the track and many riders then passed me. When I re-joined I pushed as hard as I could and was able to catch back those I had originally passed but this meant I finished twentieth,” said Zulfahmi Khairuddin.
Meanwhile, his team mate Jakub Kornfeil said, “I started from twentieth and my target was to make it as far in front as possible, which I did. I made it up to seventh position and then unfortunately I made a little mistake in turn twelve because I was having to fight so hard in the corners. At this point I lost the group in front of me and I struggled to get back in the slip stream. The whole race was very hard because even in the first seven laps, when I was passing everyone they were just passing me back on the straight.”
