Juanfran Guevara 14th, Jorge Martin 20th in Mugello qualifying
The dominance of Italian riders in Moto3 was diluted slightly on Saturday, as a Frenchman led the way in the last free practice session and an Englishman took pole position at Mugello. In the morning the Moto3 times continued to drop. In qualifying the 1.56.999 fastest ever Moto3 lap at Mugello was eclipsed within 5 minutes.
Kent, Antonelli, Oliveira and Fenati all exchanged places at the top of the timesheet, until the overall leader of the Moto3 class established an advantage of 7 tenths to clinch pole. Kent established a new fastest lap of the Italian track with a 1:56.615 time.
Juanfran Guevara will start from fourteenth, having set a time nearly three tenths slower. He is confident that his hard work and strong pace will bring a good result tomorrow.
The youngest rider for MAPFRE Team Mahindra, Jorge MartÃn, ended the final practice session in fifth place, just two tenths off the best time, but lost feeling in qualifying and placed twentieth. He hopes that a comeback is possible on raceday.
14th Juanfran Guevara 1.57.799 (16 laps):
“We have worked hard over the weekend and the bike is ready. All three of us finished with similar times, and the situation is quite even. Although Jorge had some problems this afternoon, I think that all three of us have good pace. The work done earlier this week in the wind tunnel has helped the bike take a big step forward. Here our bike is more on a par with the rest than at other Grands Prix. Our feeling is positive and we are confident about the race. If we can complete the first lap correctly and position ourselves in the leading group, we will be able to get a good result. In the qualifying session we saw a lot of riders crash after losing the front, so we must be alert tomorrow. We spent much of the session in the top ten, but on the last two laps we lacked a little bit of a push. The differences are not significant, so tomorrow the first group will be a big one and we will have to fight hard.”
20th Jorge MartÃn 1.58.098 (16 laps):
“All things considered, and despite ending today a little far back, we have done a good job so far at this Grand Prix. This morning we had a great feeling and set a good time, but the lap time distorted the situation a little for us and we lost feeling chasing improvements. We do not understand why there was this sudden change, so we will keep working and analysing data to see how we can reverse the situation. Maybe the rise in temperature affects our setup, but fortunately tomorrow’s race will be at eleven, not at noon like qualifying. We are starting from far back, so the goal will be to try to start strong and get into a good spot quickly. We have worked hard this weekend with worn tyres, and that’s very positive for the race.”
Source: Aspar Media
