Monster Yamaha Tech3 rider Johann Zarco initiated the second day of action at the Italian GP this morning with a superb improvement of 1.409 seconds from the first to the third Free Practice to comfortably sit in fifth spot. During the second Qualifying session, the French star was fighting hard in the ultra-competitive premier class and will have to start from the third row on Sunday, after he missed out on the top by only 0.622 seconds.
MotoGP rookie Hafizh Syahrin found a great pace from the word go this morning. In FP3 he impressively lowered his practice time by incredible 2.381 seconds from FP1 and showed up in strong form during Q1. With a fastest time of 1’47.188 minutes, he was able to snatch a fantastic fourth position and will launch off the line from the middle of the fifth row of the grid when the red lights will go out for the Italian Grand Prix at 14.00 local time tomorrow afternoon.
Hafizh Syahrin
Position: 14th – Time: 1’47.188 – Laps: 8
“I’m very happy about the Qualifying in Mugello. I got the same result like in Le Mans, P14, but Morbidelli as the best rookie sits in P12, which is not too far. I’m also truly close to the top, it’s just 0.9 seconds, which makes me very proud. This is my best Qualifying at the moment, because it’s less than one second to the pole position. For tomorrow I try to deliver a good start and aim to make a step forward in order to be closer to the front, because my overall pace was not bad. This track is very long, if you follow one rider, you can take an advantage for a quick lap time, but anyway, I did a great time by myself and I’m very satisfied with this. A huge thanks to my team, because from this morning, we were very fast and I will give my best to bring home as many points as possible tomorrow.”
Johann Zarco
Position: 9th – Time: 1’46.830 – Laps: 7