FERRARI CLINCHES MAIDEN Q2 DIRECT SEED OF THE SEASON
Matteo Ferrari has regained speed and feeling with his electric Ducati machine: following a sub-par start to the season, he is back in the battle for the first positions, securing the fourth-quickest time in the combined FP classification and therefore the direct seed to Q2, where unfortunately made a mistake and crashed. He will start tomorrow’s two races from ninth place on the grid, ready to bounce back.
Alessio Finello also had a solid performance as he narrowly missed out on a direct seed to Q2 for only three tenths of a second. He then had a challenging Q1, in which he struggled to get up to speed and replicate the time set in free practice: the rider #72 will start the two encounters of the #CatalanGP from row five, with the top ten being the clear goal for both races.
9th – MATTEO FERRARI #11 (1’53.718)
“I’m quite happy with this opening day as it was my best Friday performance so far this year. I’m sorry for how qualifying went as we wanted to start the two races as close as possible to the front of the grid in order to stay with the leading group in the early stages, but unfortunately I waited a little too long and when I tried to push, maybe due to cold tyres, I had a small crash at turn one. It’s a pity: we’ll start tomorrow’s races from ninth place, but we showed a good pace in FP2. We’ll try to have the best races we can and battle for the podium, which is our goal.”
14th – ALESSIO FINELLO #72 (1’49.159)
“We struggled here last year as Barcelona is not among my favourite tracks. This morning, instead, we had quite a good start, then in FP2 we made a major step and got really close to the front runners. Too bad for qualifying: unfortunately, I couldn’t find the rhythm as it was hectic out on track and I couldn’t lap with the same speed as during free practice. I’ll start from fourteenth place on the grid: I’ll try my best to make up as many positions as possible; we’re fast and it’s showing. We’ll have to capitalise tomorrow with two good races.”
