Team Suzuki Press Office – October 23.
Grid positions for Emilia Romagna GP:
Alex Rins: 13th – 1’34.418
Joan Mir: 19th – 1’35.683
It was a very damp and misty start to Saturday at Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli on Italy’s north-east coast, making it difficult for anyone to improve early in FP3.
Joan Mir was one of the first riders to bring his lap time down as he moved into the Top 10 with sixth using the medium-soft combination. A short while later he had claimed the top spot. Alex Rins was also trying to improve but a crash at Turn 13 cost him the chance to move up the time sheet. Despite his early form, and being quickest through Sector 1, Mir finished FP3 in 12th while Rins was 21st.
FP4 proved to be the toughest session of the day for all the MotoGP™ riders with a rapidly drying track forcing the decision between full wets and slicks. The standing water had cleared but temperatures were still low, this resulted in eight crashes over the course of the 30 minute session. Mir was one of these unfortunate fallers at Turn 15.
Q1 was a highly competitive session with several top riders all battling it out for the top two places. Both Team Suzuki Ecstar’s riders opted for a ‘no stop strategy’ and chose the soft-soft slick combination. They proceeded to set a string of five fast laps in a row, always within the Top 5 riders. Mir’s last flying lap was caught by yellow flags and he then fell at the final corner. Rins moved into second on his penultimate flying lap but was soon knocked to fourth; however, he later moved to third after a yellow flag infringement from Fabio Quartararo. The GSX-RR riders will therefore start from 13th and 19th on tomorrow’s grid. Luckily, both were uninjured during their crashes.
Alex Rins:
“I was really close to getting into Q2, but unfortunately I’ll start the race from P13. Let’s see, because tomorrow will be very different; the last couple of days we’ve been riding in difficult conditions and it will be fully dry and hopefully sunny tomorrow. I had a nasty crash this morning in FP3 but luckily I’m OK and ready to push tomorrow and enjoy a nice race. Today has been very hard for everyone with a lot of crashes, and tomorrow should hopefully be easier. We already know what our set-up and tyres will be thanks to the data we collected in the test and the race here last month.”
Joan Mir:
“In this world when something goes wrong, everything goes wrong – today was not our day! In FP3 I was quite competitive in wet conditions but like yesterday, as the track was getting drier I found it harder and harder to get the feeling with the slick. I crashed in FP4 and in Q1 because the conditions were tough and I couldn’t capture the right feeling with the tyre. The track was getting better towards the end of the day, and tomorrow is supposed to be dry, so I’m hoping to do a good job even from a low grid position.”
Ken Kawauchi – Technical Manager:
“This morning we felt quite confident, but the weather quickly changed that and both Joan and Alex struggled, they couldn’t make it into Q2. We did our best to recover and improve but the conditions were very difficult and in the end we have not qualified well, despite the riders feeling better at the end of Q1. Tomorrow we hope to gain as many places as possible.”
GP NOLAN DEL MADE IN ITALY E DELL’EMILIA-ROMAGNA – Qualifying Classification:
1. F. BAGNAIA – Ducati Lenovo Team – 01:33.045
2. J. MILLER – Ducati Lenovo Team – 01:33.070 – +0.025
3. L. MARINI – SKY VR46 Avintia – 01:33.130 – +0.085
4. P. ESPARGARO – Repsol Honda Team – 01:33.313 – +0.268
5. M. OLIVEIRA – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing – 01:33.439 – +0.394
6. F. MORBIDELLI – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP – 01:33.526 – +0.481
7. M. MARQUEZ – Repsol Honda Team – 01:33.850 – +0.805
8. I. LECUONA – Tech 3 KTM Factory Racing – 01:33.893 – +0.848
9. D. PETRUCCI – Tech 3 KTM Factory Racing – 01:34.140 – +1.095
10. J. ZARCO – Pramac Racing – 01:34.687 – +1.642
11. A. ESPARGARO – Aprilia Racing Team Gresini – 01:34.963 -+1.918
12. J. MARTIN – Pramac Racing – 02:24.631 – +51.586
13. A. RINS – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR – 01:34.418 – Q1
14. F. QUARTARARO – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP – 01:34.411 – Q1
15. A. MARQUEZ – LCR Honda CASTROL – 01:34.454 – Q1
16. T. NAKAGAMI – LCR Honda IDEMITSU – 01:34.875 -Q1
17. M. VIÑALES – Aprilia Racing Team Gresini – 01:35.193 – Q1
18. E. BASTIANINI – Avintia Esponsorama – 01:35.236 -Q1
19. J. MIR – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR – 01:35.683 – Q1
20. B. BINDER – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing – 01:36.478 – Q1
21. A. DOVIZIOSO – Petronas Yamaha SRT – 01:36.639-Q1
22. M. PIRRO – Ducati Lenovo Team – 01:37.880 – Q1
23. V. ROSSI – Petronas Yamaha SRT – 01:37.948 – Q1
