This time the gamble on tyres doesn’t pay off

In Indianapolis last year Livio Loi was the only rider on slicks and he won the race thanks to that gamble. In Argentina today the circumstances were more or less the same, but this time Livio Loi was the only rider at the start of the Moto3 race on rain tyres. It was a gamble again, but this time it turned out to be a bad shot. Loi finished empty handed in sixteenth after a brave race.

Dark clouds covering the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit and the thinnish dry line made RW Racing GP choose for rain tyres. “It wasn’t a blind gamble,” team manager Jarno Janssen says. “We all agreed on wet tyres. We expected more rain to come. It was drizzling all the time, but unfortunately it didn’t increase, otherwise we would strike it rich. Instead it dried out pretty quickly and our choice turned out to be a mistake. As team manager I take full responsibility for that.”

Being the only one on rain tyres Livio Loi made a rocket start from tenth on the grid to second halfway through the first lap. By the end of that lap he and Khairul Pawi were already 4 seconds away from the rest of the pack. Pawi, the Malaysian rookie was not on rain tyres and was able to make the most of the thin dry line, while Loi had to ride different lines to profit from the wet. In those circumstances the young Malaysian could get away and built up an advantage of 15 seconds to Loi by lap 6.

In that phase the rest of the field had managed to close in on Loi as the track dried out quickly. The rainflag was being waved several times, but the rain held off and Loi lost ground. In lap 8 he was caught by Adam Norrodin and Jorge Navarro and the next lap the Belgian dropped to eleven, to thirteen, to sixteen. Thanks to Adam Canet’s crash he moved back up to fifteenth and had his hands on a single championship point, but in the final lap Phillip Oettl managed to pass as well, leaving Loi empty handed despite a brave race.

Livio Loi - 16 (+ 1.10,165)

“Just too bad. We were in doubt on the grid and in the end we decided all together to use the wet tyres. I didn’t expect to be the only one and I certainly didn’t expect the rest to be fast so soon. I tried to keep the pace high but also try to save the tyres a bit as it was drying out quickly. I couldn’t get away as much as I had hoped for, but eventually it took until halfway through the race before I was caught by the pack. It is very unfortunate Oettl caught me in the end and snatched the last championship point, but looking at who were still behind me - riders like Fenati, Bastianini and Bagnaia, who were fighting for the podium in Qatar - I’m not even that disappointed, because at least I tried and have been fighting for the podium for half of the race. And that’s what happens when you take a gamble: sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But if you don’t try, you certainly have no chance of winning.”