Gonzalez, what are you doing? Huge blunder by the Moto2 leader at Silverstone!

Celebrate too early and problems abound: Manuel Gonzalez throws away the win at Silverstone. What happened to the Moto2 leader?

The unbelievable has happened again: this time the protagonist is Manuel Gonzalez, who celebrated one lap before the end of the GP at Silverstone! Convinced he had finished and therefore won, he slowed down, but Daniel Holgado clipped him and bent his exhaust, as shown in the cover photo. While his rivals escaped and Filip Salac claimed a historic victory, from that moment on it became a survival race for the Moto2 leader, ending in 14th place. He’s still leading the championship, but the many points dropped allowed his rivals to claw some back... For the poor Intact GP rider, snubbed by MotoGP despite his results, it was a nasty “distraction,” even if he’s not the first in history.

A fiercely fought race between Gonzalez, Holgado, Salac and Ortola, with Escrig lurking about six tenths behind. The Silverstone Grand Prix proved decidedly lively, a pity about Arbolino’s crash several laps earlier while charging back... Who knows what he could have done, maybe reached the podium, but we’ll never know. That didn’t make it a quiet race—on the contrary, the riders mentioned put on a show. Until the penultimate lap and the crazy twist: across the line with Gonzalez ahead of the others in that order. But there’s still one lap to go! Holgado moves to avoid him but clips him on the side, the moment when the exhaust takes the hit and bends.

From then on sparks fly from Gonzalez’s KALEX Moto2 every time the exhaust touches the asphalt; it’s no longer possible to fight. The Moto2 leader struggles to keep the bike upright, the rivals take the chance to break away and the chasers erase the gap as well... The frustration is clear at the end of the GP: 23 points left on the table due to a lap-counting error, compounded by a major issue that clearly affected his final lap. He didn’t lose too much in the sense that his overall lead is still reassuring, but watch out, Manuel, for the next GPs!

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