VOL. 52 ISSUE 26 JUNE 30, 2015 P69
Yonny Hernandez.
Last point and first Open class
honors went to Loris Baz on the
Athina Yamaha.
Aspar Honda's Nicky Hayden
was 16th, disgruntled after a
difficult weekend culminated in
being pushed onto the escape
road at the end of the back
straight on the first lap by the
headlong Jack Miller on the
CWM Honda, rejoining plumb
last, though he had the satisfac-
tion of beating Aprilia's Alvaro
Bautista, as well as Avintia Duca-
ti's Mike di Meglio and Bautista's
teammate Marco Melandri.
"The weekend certainly hadn't
been as smooth as we hoped,"
said Hayden. "We had some
little, unique problems with
changing engines and different
things with the bike stopping on
the track a few times. The team
Briefly...
maha took a turn for the worse at
Assen when the former Moto2 World
Champion broke the scaphoid bone
in his wrist when crashed out of the
race on the sixth lap. The potentially
troublesome injury makes him a very
doubtful starter for the next event,
his home German Grand Prix at the
Sachsenring on July 12.
The Czech Republic Grand Prix at
Brno has been saved at the eleventh
hour, with an announcement at As-
sen that the race will go ahead as
scheduled on August 16. In spite of
attracting huge crowds, the event
has been tottering financially for the
past couple of years. The fine Brno
circuit, purpose-built by the then
Communist government, was added
to the calendar in 1987, and has run
every year since except 1992, while
the country was undergoing transi-
tion from Communism to become
the Czech Republic.
With Karel Abraham out injured,
plans to give rising Dutch rider Mi-
chael van der Mark a home-race
MotoGP debut on the AB Motorac-
ing Honda floundered in the week
before the race. The sticking point,
sponsorship issues aside, was
thought to be failure to reach agree-
ment over who would pick up the tab
for crash damage. Abraham injured
his foot in practice for the last round
in Catalunya, requiring surgery, and
making him a doubtful starter also for
the next round in Germany.
Bradley Smith and teammate Pol
Espargaro leave Sunday for Su-
zuka, for first tests on the factory
Yamaha entry, spearheading the
company's return to the prestigious
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