Today it was the first time for everybody at the famous track Indianapolis Motor Speedway. During this rainy day of the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix the DeGraaf Grand Prix Team riders were not on the pace yet. Danny Webb was the fastest rider of the DeGraaf Grand Prix Team and qualified on a provisional 19th position. American Stevie Bonsey is riding his home grand prix this weekend but couldn’t make friends yet with the track and qualified on a provisional 22nd position. Hugo van den Berg didn’t qualify and is the first rider outside the qualification limit.
This morning at 08.30h local time the 125 class were the first ones to ride the Indianapolis track. With a lot of rain the riders started their first session and were searching for the ideal line. Danny Webb builds up this session and finished on an ok 11th position. Stevie Bonsey tried to ride fast lap times in the beginning but had a little crash. Because of this he missed valuable time and could only ride the last 10 minutes of the session and finished on a 29th position. Hugo van den Berg started the session well with positions between the 10th and the 15th. In the last 5 minutes he lost a lot of places and ended the session on a 22nd spot. Also the qualification session was held in very wet circumstances. It wasn’t as wet as in the morning but the track felt the same for the riders. Again British rider Danny Webb was the fastest rider of the team and ended up on the 19th position. Webb wasn’t happy with this position. American Stevie Bonsey could ride faster lap times in the qualification session compare to the morning session. Bonsey stayed out for a long time to learn the track. The American teenager builds up the session and was every lap faster and ended up on 22nd position. Hugo van den Berg had a good morning session and even in the qualification session he was more than 3,5 seconds faster than in the morning. At the end Van den Berg wasn’t qualified and missed it by 0,007 seconds! Also another seven riders were not qualified.
Stevie Bonsey (22nd, 2:03,859): “Well, so far it hasn’t been the best day for me. I’m really struggling with this track but it is coming better and better. I’m trying to get to speed up slowly! I need to get on track early in the morning and put it in the top 10.”
Danny Webb (19th, 2:03,087): “Today was not so good. It has been wet all day. The morning session was ok. I went out in the afternoon and I was improving all the time. Every lap I improved but not enough. Tomorrow we will just have to give 110%. I’m going to go to the maximum!”
Hugo van den Berg (NQ, 2:06,792): “This morning it went pretty well. I was in the top 15 most of the time. It was hard to ride the track in these wet conditions with a lot of water on the track. Vanochtend liep het best goed. I like the old part of the track. For the rest of the track I’m struggling. In the afternoon I wasn’t fast enough and couldn’t even qualify! Tomorrow I will go for it and I’m not worried about qualifying.”
