French rider sets the fastest time in qualifying for only his fourth race in the World Championship. Teammate Jorge Navarro finishes tenth, and Maria Herrera twenty-fourth.
Only four races into his World Championship career, Fabio Quartararo has already clinched his first pole in Moto3. At the first track of the season that he already knew from the FIM CEV Repsol, Quartararo was able to focus on his riding and setup on Friday and Saturday and reap the rewards in the qualifying session. The Frenchman dominated the second half of the session, never relinquishing the top spot. Eventually he set his best time of 1:46.791 on his penultimate lap, 0.120s ahead of second placed rider and leader of the overall standings, Danny Kent.
Teammate Jorge Navarro, with a best time of 1:47.400, was 6 tenths off Quartararo and clocked the tenth fastest time. He will start from the third row of the grid tomorrow. Further back will be Maria Herrera, who suffered a light crash at Turn 2 at the end of the qualifying session which prevented her from placing higher than 24th.
Tomorrow’s Moto3 race will start at 11:00am local time.
Fabio Quartararo, 1st 1:46.791 sec, 33 laps, 146 km.
“Getting pole position was very difficult. There were many riders waiting for a tow to set a fast time, but I managed to find a free space to get mine. On my fast lap I made some mistakes, which I will have to improve on, but I’m happy. I’ve got the pole but now I need to think about tomorrow’s race, which is the hardest thing. I want to thank the team and my family.”
Jorge Navarro, 10th, 1:47.400 sec, 32 laps, 142 km.
“This morning we made some changes to the bike and I felt quite comfortable. The pace was good and consistent with the used tyres, and we came into the qualifying session with a good feeling. We saw that the track conditions were changing a lot and we made some small adjustments to the bike, which didn’t work as well as we would have liked. We will start from tenth place, also because I could not pull out a good single lap, so tomorrow we know we have a good pace and I’ll have to make a good start and learn as much as possible in the race.”
Maria Herrera, 24th, 1:48.046 sec, 30 laps, 133 km.
“In the first session we went to work on what yesterday we saw we had to improve. I quickly felt very comfortable, although I encountered a lot of traffic as many riders stopped in the middle of the track and I could not get a good lap. In qualifying I was not very lucky, because at the beginning of the session I came up against a lot of traffic. In the end, when it came to setting a good lap time, I slotted in behind Masbou, but at Turn 2 I made a mistake and I lost grip when accelerating. It was only a small crash, but I was not able to improve afterwards. I do not like my starting position for tomorrow, but I know I have a good pace so I’ll try to make a good start and put myself in a fast group on the early laps.”
