The Correos Prepago Yamaha VR46 Master Camp team have travelled from Portugal to Argentina for the back-to-back second round of the 2023 Moto2 World Championship. Manuel Gonzalez will be joined by Soichiro Minamimoto at this weekend‘s GP at the Autodromo do Termas de Río Hondo.
Gonzalez equalled his best score in the Moto2 class at the first round last week, securing a solid fifth place. The Spaniard is keen to fight for the podium again. Though he finished 14th in the 2022 Argentina GP, he is feeling confident that with more experience under his belt, he can fight at the front this time round.
As Kohta Nozane is recovering from a lower-back injury, Minamimoto will be joining the Correos Prepago Yamaha VR46 Master Camp squad as a replacement rider. Minamimoto is a former Yamaha VR46 Master Camp student who took part in the first and second edition of the training week for young talent in Tavullia. Before accepting this new Moto2 gig, the Japanese rider was active in the 2023 Asia Road Racing Championship, riding for the YAMAHA GEN BLU Racing Team ASEAN in the SS600 class. This weekend will be his first time trying a Moto2 bike and riding on Argentine soil, so he is keen to get to work.
The 4.8km long Termas de Río Hondo circuit was added to the MotoGP calendar in 2014. A devastating fire in February 2021 destroyed a large part of the paddock, but it has been rebuilt since then. With an exciting lay-out that includes a mixture of fast corners (five left, nine right) and a 1076m longest straight, the fans can be assured that they will see plenty of racing and overtaking action in Argentina again.
The Grand Prix of Argentina is held in the GMT -3 time zone. Moto2's P1 will take place on Friday from 09:50 - 10:30, local track time followed by P2 from 14:05 - 14:45. On Saturday, P3 will be held from 09:25 - 09:55 and the qualifying sessions from 13:45 - 14:25. On Sunday, the race starts at 12:15.
