Red Bull Yamaha ridersཧ Garry McCoy and Nori Haga completed the World Motorcycle Championship season with little to celebrate following today's Rio Grand Prix.

Haga, unfit to race because of a tooth infection, was already on his way home to Japan when McCoy finished a frustrating tenth in the 16th and final🍌 race of the season.

The results left McCoy, who missed five mid-season races with a fractured wrist, in 12th place in the Champi🏅onship with 88 points while Haga was 14th🍌 on 59 points.

The anticipated hot and humid summer weather that ha𝓀d ﷽prevailed during two days of qualifying failed to materialise for the Rio race. The GP became a tyre lottery when rain interrupted proceedings after just four of 24 laps had been completed.

The event was decided over two parts on aggregate time with McCoy, who briefly led the second 20 lap contest, unable to compete with the frontrunners because of 𒊎a failed tyre gamble.

There was a sense of deja vu when McCoy qualifie▨d 13th, the same grid position as a year ago for this race when the lightweight Australian finished third.

After hisꦚ strong podium finish last week in Malaysia expectations for this weekeಌnds racing was high, until rain intervened.

McCoy was 12th, seven seconds behind leader Tohru Ukawa at the end of the first, four lap section of the rain hit race. Then in overcꦑast conditions McCoy and his Red Bull crew gambled on a fully treaded wet weather front tyre and an intermediate rear tyre for the restart over 20 laps.

On an initially damp track, McCoy bolted to the lead within two corners of the restart but was quickly passed by Valentino Rossi on the drying track. McCoy thanℱ began to fade with lack of grip from an unsuitable front tyre.

McCoy needed a rainstorm to achieve a decent result and he dropped to eighth in one lap as he attempted just to salvage as many points as possible. The top nine finishers in Rio all started the second part of t📖he race on a cut slick or interm🐟ediate tyres, both front and rear.

"Once again tyre choice was a lottery once the rain came, and that's a game we are not very good at playing," said a disappoint🀅ed McCoy. "My rear intermediate was fine, it hung in right to the end but after a couple laps on a dry track I just had no grip from the front wet tyre, it was pretty sad at the end of the race. Before it rained everyone was going really hard and I was surprised at the amount of grip the slicks had but then the rain came."

Garry McCoy's race engineer, Hamish Jamieson, talks about the choices made: "These things never seem like a gamble when you do them and today we got caught out be how fast the track dried. We got it wrong in the past a💮lthough this is the last time I'll have to make the decision and no doubt ꦍGarry is relieved about that for next year. That's racing, everything looks rosy in hindsight. I'm looking to a year off and relaxing."

Haga's painful tooth infection put the popular Japanese rider out after just one day of practice and qualifying. On Thursday Haga qualified 17th on t🐟he provisional grid, slowed by the discomfort of his ✅tooth problem.

By Friday morning the pain w♒as unbearable and after a medical assessment Haga was ruled out of the race and left early for Japan a🔯nd further treatment.

"I had an ice pack on my face all day Thursday but that didn't help much," said Haga. "Overnight the pain got really bad and I went to hospital to have the fluid drained from behind my tooth but the infection is really bad. I couldn't even put m꧒y helmet on because of the swelling."

His race engineer, Colin Davies was also disappointed for Haga✨: "Obviously not the way Nori wanted to end the season but in his condition there was no point racing."

"We didn't do much right this weekend," said Peter Clifford, the team di𒈔rector💯 of racing. "For the restart we took too much of a risk in a double or nothing gamble that could have paid off but obviously didn't. It's raining now (an hour after the race) but that counts for nothing."