Team Suzuki Press Office – September 24.
Maverick Viñales – 2nd.
Aleix Espargaró – 8th.
Team SUZUKI ECSTAR’s Maverick Viñales put together a sensational lap in the closing seconds of Q2 at the Gran Premio Movistar de Aragón MotoGP™ in Spain to take second position, as team-mate Aleix Espargaró finished eighth.
Viñales and Espargaró’s crews worked on revised settings on the GSX-RRs from data acquired yesterday at the Motorland Aragon circuit and were immediately on a better pace in this morning’s FP3, both riders qualifying directly to Q2. Viñales was third with a time of 1’48.052 and Espargaró fifth with a best-lap of 1’48.308 (0.242 and 0.498 respectively from Pole Position).
In the all-important 15-minute final Qualifying 2, Viñales waited until 30 seconds from the end of the session to set a blistering 1’47.748-second lap; by far his fastest of the weekend. Espargaró, who will line-up in the middle of Row 3 tomorrow, also improved his lap-time, setting a 1’48.230.
Davide Brivio – Team Manager:
“Today Maverick did a very good job ending up in second place and the first row for tomorrow’s race. This is very important and came thanks to an excellent performance. Also, Aleix could have been in a better position, but he couldn’t exploit the qualifying at its best and so this resulted in a third row position, but his pace is good and his performance has improved. For tomorrow’s race, Maverick will try to stay with the leaders while Aleix will have to recover. In FP4 they both did a really good job with many improvements and the pace is consistent and positive. As a team, we will try to find some further improvements in the set-up and exploit the potential for a good race.”