Sachsenring, 15 June: Honda LCR rider Carlos Checa salvaged valuable world championship points with a determined ride into fourteenth place in today’s German Grand Prix. The race was run in heat wave conditions at a sun-soaked Sachsenring, before a sell-out attendance of 101,000 spectators. Track temperatures soared to 50 degrees.

Checa finished in the points after a strong comeback performance from last position following a crash on lap three, an incident that took the Spanish rider by surprise. At that moment he was in 13th place, from 15th on the gird, and aiming for a top ten finish. Checa rode an updated Honda RC212V chassis in today’s race, after a weekend of intense work to find the optimum set-up. The race was won by factory Honda rider Dani Pedrosa.

CHECA: Fourteenth - Championship: 14th/27 points

CHECA: “I don’t know what happened, the crash was a surprise. I arrived at turn 12, a little on the inside, and just lost the front-end. Apart from the crash the bike feeling today was not as fluid as in practice but was OK. With this new chassis we have been making a lot of changes, even for the warm-up this morning. It is difficult to understand this situation but now we must stay positive and look ahead to the USGP next weekend.”

Meanwhile Irish rider Eugene Laverty failed to finish the 250cc GP, crashing out of the race on lap 19 after hitting the notorious bumps on the entry to turn twelve.

LAVERTY: “There were some positives from a difficult weekend, I had a good start and my lap times were consistent and we now have a set-up that keeps the rear tyre in good shape. At turn 12 the I hit the bumps and bike jumped out of gear and I lost the front-end."