Team Suzuki Press Office – June 25.
Team SUZUKI ECSTAR riders Aleix Espargaró and Maverick Viñales will start tomorrow’s Motul TT Assen MotoGP™ race in the Netherlands from the third and fourth rows after rain played a part in today’s final qualifying.
In the mornings dry FP3, Viñales and Espargaró both transferred directly to Q2 following their strong third and eighth positions respectively. But times dropped-off dramatically in FP4 and the two all-important qualifying sessions following the showers and a change to wet tyres.
Espargaro had to struggle with the tyre at the very beginning of the qualifying session, not being able to find a good feeling with the soft one and having to switch pretty soon to the hard. Then, some traffic on track prevented him to do a clean lap for the time attack. His feeling is positive, however, as the improvements done and the race pace set him as a contender in such a pack race as Assen is expected to be.
Viñales was an early casualty of Q2, slipping off his GSX-RR at the start and having to transfer to his second machine, which messed-up the team’s strategy for a new set of tyres for the time attack. The Spaniard, however, could work intensively both on dry and wet to find a good set-up for the race pace, giving him good hopes for tomorrow’s race.