“It's an incredible feeling that I've been waiting for for many years, the last time was in the FIM CEV Championship. I knew I had these capabilities because back then I was on the podium with the guys who are in the podium here regularly. To be honest, it wasn't a difficult race for me because I was feeling so strong.

During the last five laps I was struggling with the grip, but I think it was the same for everyone. Our choice for the soft rear tyre was quite risky because we only used them for a couple of laps in qualifying.

n the end it turned out to be the right choice because the harder tyre was dropping a lot. It's unbelievable, I'm so happy for Belgian motorsport. Jarno and the rest of the team, they have also been fantastic over the last couple of  years. I also want to thank my family because thanks to them I have made it to here."

“Normally I might have been happy with three points, but that's no longer the case. I felt so strong at the beginning of the race that I couldn't even really push yet because I was behind some riders who were significantly slower.

Once I passed them, I even did  faster laps than the guys in front. Then I had to deal with a big loss of grip which caused my pace to drop way down and this seemed to happen to other riders too who dropped back a lot. In the last corner of the race I lost another position so this is a bitter pill to swallow.

This hits hard because we were strong all weekend here, from Friday morning until a third of the race. Thanks to the team who worked really hard and of course congratulations on Barry's fantastic performance. This podium comes at an important time at the start of the season."