Today Matej finished his first meeting outside Europe, in Auckland, New Zealand.
On Western Springs track, already after the first races, unfortunately turned out that the start positions on the inside, red and blue, will be a big advantage versus outside two, which Matej had in first three races. In the fourth appearance he started with a relatively favourable position in blue colour. “I gated well, but then I let the bike more towards the outside line as I didn’t want to lose too much speed. Of course the others took advantage of this and beat me on the inside line. My bike was also too weak because we figured out the right settings just before my last heat, “described Matej and won his last heat ahead of the winner of the race, Jaroslaw Hampel.
Matej finished his first SGP appearance this year with five points, which was enough for 14th place.
Heat results:
H1: Gollob, Woffinden, Žagar, Kasprzak
H7: Ward, Holder, Lindgren, Žagar
H11: Pedersen, Iversen, Žagar, Sajfutdinow
H15: Lindbäck, Vaculik, Hancock, Žagar
H18: Žagar, Hampel, Jonsson, Bunyan
Final results and points:
1. Jaroslaw Hampel (PL) 15p, 2. Tomasz Gollob (PL) 15p, 3 Nicki Pedersen (DK) 12p, 4. Greg Hancock (USA) 11p, 5. Darcy Ward (AUS) 12p, 6. Andreas Jonsson (SWE) 11p, 7. Tai Woffinden (UK) 9p, 8. Chris Holder (AUS) 9p, … 14. Matej Žagar (SLO) 5p, …
Matej’s statement after the race (in Slovenian):
