10/03/2024

Veijer & Suzuki with double top 10 in Qatar

A successful start to the 2024 season brought the LIQUI MOLY Husqvarna Intact GP Team valuable first World Championship points. Collin Veijer earned eleven points with fifth place in his usual ambitious manner. His new teammate Tatsuki Suzuki crossed the line in 7th position after a successful fightback.

Four months have passed since his last race and yet the 2023 shooting star, Collin Veijer, managed to pick up where he left off in the previous season. Starting the race from tenth on the grid, the Dutchman was already in eighth place after a solid start and found himself within an eleven-man battle group for the opening victory. Numerous overtaking manoeuvres disrupted the rhythm, but the 19-year-old Moto3 Grand Prix winner found himself in fifth position again but slipped back to the end of the leading group at the end of the race after the tyres noticeably deteriorated. Despite everything, the snappy Veijer prepared his final attack and managed to move back up to fifth place within a few corners. Just 0.338s behind race winner David Alonso, he finally collected his first 11 points of the season.

Tatsuki Suzuki fought just as fiercely in his first race on the new Husqvarna. After a rather mixed qualifying session, the Japanese rider started the 16-lap race on the Lusail International Circuit just outside Doha in nineteenth place. The experienced Suzuki catapulted himself up six positions on the first lap of the challenging race, where he managed to position himself firmly in the leading group on the following laps. Close slipstream duels resulted in numerous overtaking manoeuvres, in which the 26-year-old also proved to have a strong pace, although it was not easy to get through and so he finished the opening race for the LIQUI MOLY Husqvarna Intact GP Team in seventh place with 9 points on his World Championship account.

Hungry to score more world championship points, the German Moto3 racing team will now head home for a short break before hopefully scoring many more points on the Easter weekend in Portimao from the 22nd - 24th of March.

RESULTS

Race
1. David ALONSO/ COL/ CFMOTO
2. Daniel HOLGADO/ SPA/ GASGAS – (+0.041)
3. Taiyo FURUSATO/ JPN/ HONDA – (+ 0.143)
5. Collin VEIJER/ NED/ HUSQVARNA – (+0.338)
7. Tatsuki SUZUKI/ JPN/ HUSQVARNA – (+1.144)

Riders Championship
1. ALONSO David/ COL – 25
2. HOLGADO Daniel/ SPA – 20
3. FURUSATO Taiyo / JPN – 16
5. VEIJER Collin/ NED – 11
7. SUZUKI Tatsuki/ JPN – 9

Team Championship
1. CFMOTO ASPAR TEAM – 30
2. RED BULL GASGAS TECH3 – 26
3. LIQUI MOLY HUSQVARNA INTACT GP – 20

Collin Veijer

P5 - (+0.338)
Moto3 World Championship 2024 - P5 - 11 Points

"To be honest, I'm not entirely satisfied with the result, because I think we can do better. In the beginning, the feeling was okay, but when the tyre drop started, I struggled a bit more with the situation. Also, some people made crazy overtaking manoeuvres on me, which sometimes threw me off my rhythm. Overall, our maximum in this race was P5. Let's see what we can achieve in the next races because one thing is that I had a difficult time here in Qatar on this track last year as well. So, we will see what we can do on the other track though, I am confident that we can do better than here."

Tatsuki Suzuki

P7 - (+1.144)
Moto3 World Championship 2024 - P7 - 9 Points

"It was a tough race because yesterday we missed out on making it into Q2 by just a tenth of a second. Consequently, we had to start from further back, but I pushed like a bastard in the first five laps and put a bit too much strain on my tyres, for which I had to pay towards the end of the race when the tyres were completely worn out. But I'm quite happy with today's result because we can build on this performance for the rest of the season, and we’ve to make a step forward in every race from now on. In any case, it was a good start to the new championship. Many thanks to the whole team for their hard work this weekend."

Peter Öttl

Team Manager

"From the team's point of view, we are very satisfied with the first weekend of the new season. With P5 and P7, both riders achieved good positions. This confirms the good work that the team has done during winter preparations, during the tests and also on both days of practice here in Qatar. Our starting positions were not ideal, but we were focused on finding a good set-up for the race, which paid off in the race. This season it will be important that both the riders and the technical crews can manage the tyres well. That will certainly be a challenge, and whoever gets to grips with it best will come out on top in the end.
Collin's fifth place was a great start to the new championship. He delivered exactly what we had hoped for from him. Collin was in the leading group over the entire distance and achieved a good position at the end. Tatsuki, on the other hand, surprised us a little, because he achieved more than we thought he could do in this race. That makes me very happy for him and his team. He improved steadily over the course of the weekend. We even used qualifying to work on the set-up, which is why he did the whole session on his own. In the end, he only qualified for P19 on the grid. But this work definitely paid off, so he was able to catch up in the race right after the start and stay in the leading group until the end. His seventh place is therefore a great result for him in his first race with the Husqvarna."

Qatar GP 2024 – Pictures Moto3 Sunday

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