Terol secures sixth on Le Mans Moto2 grid

The rain was on everyone’s minds at Le Mans on Saturday and although it held off for most of the day at the French GP by the time the Moto2 riders started qualifying the riders knew it was coming. The session started in the dry and the riders went out hard to register early fast laps, in order to have one in the bag. The rain arrived about ten minutes into the session and the riders stayed out initially, but once the rain became more intense most of the riders regressed to their boxes and stayed dry. By that time, and to no great surprise given his pace in free practice, it was Nakagami at the head of the timesheet ahead of Redding. Those two look strong, whilst Terol and Luthi are nearby and pushing hard.

Terol is in sixth place on the grid, but he has looked good throughout the weekend and was third fastest in morning practice. Whilst not registering a super quick single lap the Spanish rider is showing good race and hopes to fly in tomorrow’s race. Working to improve that pace, Nico has found more rear grip, which he was searching for at Jerez, and his engine performance is improved, putting his bike amongst the fastest on Saturday. Jordi Torres is not having such success. He tried several settings in the morning but only ended up having a crash on the second corner whilst searching for improvements. He felt better feeling with the bike in the afternoon but the opportunity was cut short by the rain and he ended up 15th. Nevertheless the Catalan aims for a good ride on Sunday from the fifth row.

6th Nico Terol 1.39.333 (10 laps):
“We’ve been doing a good job throughout the weekend. The aim was to get on the front row but we’re still happy with the QP. We’re pleased because in the morning we went fast and ended up third overall, with the bike running well and the rear grip getting better, as well as the engine settings. We couldn’t do much in qualifying because of the rain and the slippery track. I still got in a decent lap to finish in sixth and if the race is dry there should be a good group of us fighting at the front. If it’s wet we know this is a tricky circuit so we’ll have to be alert”.

15th Jordi Torres 1.39.891 (11 laps):
“It was a difficult day today. We had a lot of work planned for the morning session but then I crashed and that set us back. So we were already thinking about the qualifying session as the changes we were making weren’t working. We went with the best setting we had for QP but there was no time to complete a good fast lap. One positive was that I saw how to overtake at the highest speed posible because we saw the rain was coming and we just had to get it done. I’ve never ridden here before so I’m aiming to have a good race tomorrow and learn as much as I can”.

Source: Aspar Media