Jorge Lorenzo will line up on the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s ninth round of the championship – the German Grand Prix – after setting the third quickest time in qualifying at the Sachsenring. This morning the rider from Mallorca finished FP3 in eighth place, but this was enough to see him through into the afternoon’s Q2 session, in which he set a time of 1’20.327 to line up on row 1 alongside Marquez and Petrucci.
Team-mate Andrea Dovizioso set the fifth quickest time in 1’20.444, which puts him on the second row of the grid for the 30-lap race. This morning the Italian missed out on a top 10 place by a whisker and he had to work his way through Q1 in the early afternoon, which he did brilliantly with the quickest time.
The German Grand Prix gets underway tomorrow at 14.00 CET and will be held over a distance of 30 laps.
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99): 3rd (1’20.327)
“I’m really pleased with my lap time and a front row position and I would have signed on the dotted line for a qualifying result like this if I had known before arriving here at the Sachsenring. I even think I could have improved on my time and fought for the pole with Marquez if I hadn’t made a small mistake in the final corner, losing a little bit of precious time. I’m working well with my team but the race will be a long and very difficult one, so it’ll be important to make the right choice of tyre, get a good start and save some energy for the final stages. In any case we are set up well and I think that tomorrow we can fight for the podium and maybe even for the win.”
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04): 5th (1’20.444)
“All in all today went well, even though this morning we just missed out on getting into the top 10 by a few thousandths of a second. We tried various set-ups but the grip drops off so much that it’s difficult to have precise feedback. In any case in the FP4 session we lapped in line with the other riders who used new tyres, demonstrating that we had a good pace. Then we stayed calm during Q1, where we ended up with the quickest time, and we went through Q2 without any problems in fifth, which earned us an important row 2 start. For the race we are fast for sure but the unknown factor for everyone will be tyre management and it’ll be the wear and the drop in the rear tyre that will make the real difference.”
