GONZALEZ AND ARENAS ON ROW TWO AT ASSEN
Team QJMOTOR GRESINI Moto2 enjoyed a positive Saturday at the TT Circuit Assen as both their riders were able to qualify on the second row of the grid for the eighth Moto2 race of the season. Manuel Gonzalez managed to get up to speed straight away in Practice2 courtesy of a set-up adjustment that allowed him to push at the limit – and the Spaniard made the most of it by earning the direct seed to Q2. Even with the afternoon’s higher temperatures, he managed to perform well in Q2 and finished fourth quickest with a 1’35.640secs lap-time.
Albert Arenas, on the other hand, had to make his way through Q1 after finishing Practice2 in fifteenth place and out of a direct seed for only 5 hundredths of a second. He showed to be on great form in Q1 as he topped the session and made it through, before claiming sixth place with a 0.555secs gap from pole.
The two standard bearers of QJMOTOR Gresini will therefore start from the second row of the grid tomorrow (from 12:15 GMT +2) ready to battle for podium positions.
4th – MANUEL GONZALEZ #18 (1’35.640s)
“I’m quite happy with today: we made a big step forward compared to Friday. The bike was working a lot better and I was able to push harder, with the quick lap-times coming a lot easier. The pace was already good in Practice2, but then in qualifying I was also able to do well. We could have improved some more but it was hard on corner exit, due to the higher temperatures. We need to work on this area ahead of the race, but we’re very close now!”
6th – ALBERT ARENAS #75 (1’35.824s)
“We worked on the feeling with the front-end, which has improved. Now we need to work on the rear-end feeling but we already have a few ideas on what to do. We had a positive Q1, we collected some data and then Q2 was also not too bad. Now we focus on the race as the goal is to be competitive also on the second half of the encounter. We’re setting up a plan to achieve this goal.”
