Team Suzuki Press Office – September 10.
Maverick Viñales – 3rd.
Aleix Espargaró – 9th.
Maverick Viñales powered his Team SUZUKI ECSTAR GSX-RR onto the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s MotoGP™ at the World Misano Circuit Marco Simoncelli after a hot-lap in the closing stages; as team-mate Aleix Espargaró will start from row three.
Both Viñales and Espargaró qualified through to the all-important Q2 by finishing in third and eighth position respectively in FP3, but when it counted, Viñales found some extra-tenths to post his best lap of the weekend – a 1’32.839, with Espargaró also setting his fastest lap of 1’33.272, which could probably have been even better if he hadn’t incurred a small crash during his last ‘time attack’ attempt.
The day has been positive overall, with intense work undertaken on the set-up to improve the pace for the race; and especially to keep a consistent performance with the increasing temperatures at the Misano circuit in San Marino. The work proved to give positive results, as both riders could find a good feeling and also be fast.
Davide Brivio – Team Manager:
“Good job for Maverick who could make another positive performance; he had a great ride. To start from the first row is important because it helps the motivation and with less pressure. Aleix managed to stay in the third row, it could be a good position, however, because he has a good pace and he wasn’t bad with worn tyres; he’ll need to struggle a little more but he can do a good race. Let’s hope we can fight within the top riders and have a positive race, obviously here there are many riders with extra motivation so it won’t be easy, but we’ll try to stay with them.”
Maverick Viñales:
“Today wasn’t easy at all because usually with hot temperatures we struggle, but the team made extraordinary work between FP3 and qualifying and also I made a step, and so I could make a very effective lap. It is very important because the front row will allow me to be immediately at the front and fight for a good race. We have been pretty consistent in our improvements and finally we got within the fastest, we developed many solutions for the set-up and my crew found a very good setting. Now we also have some more ideas to work on tomorrow to see if we can find that little more that I believe we are still missing in our potential, as this will allow me to improve the pace which is the most important thing for the race.”
Aleix Espargaró:
“Finally in FP4 we found a good set-up, my pace is very good and I felt really satisfied with that. In qualifying, unfortunately, I had some trouble in finding the good feeling with the front tyre and finally with the second set of tyres for the last time attack I lost the front and had a small crash. It was too late to get back to garage and make another attempt, but the third row is not a bad place to start and having this good pace I feel confident for a positive race.”
GP TIM DI SAN MARINO E DELLA RIVIERA DI RIMINI Q2 RESULT:
1 Jorge LORENZO – Movistar Yamaha MotoGP – 1’31.868
2 Valentino ROSSI – Movistar Yamaha MotoGP – 1’32.216 + 0.348
3 Maverick VIÑALES – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR – 1’32.381 + 0.513
4 Marc MARQUEZ – Repsol Honda Team – 1’32.443 + 0.575
5 Michele PIRRO – Ducati Team – 1’32.467 + 0.599
6 Andrea DOVIZIOSO – Ducati Team – 1’32.677 + 0.809
7 Cal CRUTCHLOW – LCR Honda – 1’32.743 + 0.875
8 Dani PEDROSA – Repsol Honda Team – 1’32.859 + 0.991
9 Aleix ESPARGARO – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR – 1’32.918 + 1.050
10 Pol ESPARGARO – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – 1’33.002 + 1.134
