Mugello progress remains clear despite Balaton challenge
The World Championship team heads into a one-week break following a bittersweet back-to-back, with strong results in Mugello followed by a more challenging weekend at Balaton Park.
We knew from the outset that Hungary would not be an easy round. The weekend began on a positive note, with the team setting the fastest Honda lap in FP1 and showing competitive pace from the opening session. Later in the day, Joel Kelso secured a direct place in Q2, while Eddie O’Shea narrowly missed out after several of his quickest laps were cancelled due to track limits infringements during Practice.
Saturday’s FP2 session was used to continue refining the bike set-up ahead of qualifying. In the afternoon, O’Shea was unable to progress from Q1 after finishing eighth in the session, while Kelso secured a top-10 starting position by qualifying 10th in Q2.
The race at Balaton Park was always going to be a difficult one given how the team had fared throughout the weekend. Kelso, starting from the fourth row of the grid, managed to remain within the third group throughout the race, consistently battling for points-scoring positions.
O’Shea faced an even tougher challenge from the eighth row of the grid, particularly after being handed a Long Lap Penalty. Despite completing the penalty in the opening laps, the British rider fought his way forward and attempted to recover lost ground, ultimately finishing just short of the points.
Kelso crossed the line in 12th position to collect four championship points, while O’Shea finished 18th.
While the Balaton Park weekend did not deliver the same results as Mugello, it should not overshadow the progress the team has made over recent rounds. In Italy, both riders progressed directly to Q2 on Friday for the third consecutive Grand Prix – a first since the team’s arrival in the Moto3 World Championship. Kelso also secured the team’s second front-row start of the season, marking another important milestone in the project’s development.
The Italian Grand Prix showed that the team’s performance was no one-off. Both O’Shea and Kelso demonstrated they have the pace to run consistently within the leading group, fight at the front throughout a race and even lead laps. Although a double podium challenge ultimately fell just short, with O’Shea finishing sixth and Kelso ninth respectively, the team displayed a level of competitiveness that marked a significant step forward.
“It was a tough race, especially coming after such a high in Mugello, where P6 didn’t really tell the full story of how competitive we were throughout the weekend. We knew Balaton Park was going to be a much more difficult circuit for us.
Brno should suit both our bike and my riding style better, so I’m feeling optimistic heading into the next round.”
“It was quite a difficult weekend, but that’s something we expected coming here. In many ways, it was about salvaging what we could, scoring some points and continuing to understand the bike a little better. We made some changes that helped improve the feeling, which is encouraging.
We know the areas we still need to work on, so we’ll keep chipping away. We feel there was more potential there than the result showed, but overall it has still been a positive back-to-back following Mugello. Now we have a short break before we come back fighting in Brno.”
Attention now turns to Brno, where the team will look to build on the progress shown in recent rounds.