Intense heat made the temperature rise at Mugello on Saturday, with a qualifying session to match for the Moto3 riders. Whilst it seemed as if times would not improve due to the conditions, there were some storming laps put in by riders in the lower cylinder class. 1’57.980 was the best of the bunch. Rossi, Vázquez and Kent all pushed hard and occupied lead positions on the timesheet, until Maverick Viñales put in the definitive lap to take pole position. Sandro Cortese was second and the two will look to break free in the Italian round.
Everything is ready for tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix. The MAPFRE Aspar riders put in further hard work in qualifying, riding at a high level but experiencing slight misfortune in traffic. Neither was able to put in a clean fast lap to move up to the top spots on the grid. Héctor Faubel and Alberto Moncayo will thus start from the fourth row won Sunday. Faubel will need to make further adjustments to his setup to ensure more stability on the fast sections of the track. Moncayo is in search of more acceleration on the exit to corners. Both are hoping to get a good start off the line and move up to the top group when the lights go out.
10th Héctor Faubel 1.59.573 (17 laps): “After seeing how qualifying went, I am happy with our final position. I feel bad about not having been able to put together a perfect lap today. I was losing a lot of time riding on my own and I only came up to slower riders when looking for a slipstream. We have to be optimistic, as we took a big step forward between yesterday and today –lowering our times as a result. In general I am happy, but we still have to reduce the movement on the rear when riding through the fast sections. I hope to get a good start tomorrow and join up with the lead group. Slipstreaming will play a big part. It’s going to be a long race and we’ll have to be fully focused. I hope that the gap between us and the top three in pace evens out in the race.”
12th Alberto Moncayo 1.59.698 (16 laps): “I found myself in eighth with ten minutes to go. I knew that I could make a big improvement, but I came up to a packed group and was unable to qualify as well as I’d hoped. We changed the engine this morning, but I didn’t feel comfortable with it. We went back to yesterday’s engine, but I also didn’t have the same feel with it as before. Either something went wrong or everyone improved without us doing so. I feel comfortable with the chassis and we are using practically the same setup as at Sachsenring. We have had a good base for a number of races recently. Whilst there is still a part of the circuit where we could go faster, we have easily been up at the sharp end all weekend. The problem in qualifying was that we couldn’t get a clean lap in. I will treat tomorrow’s race as another learning experience, trying to pass as many riders as possible and having fun.”
Aspar Mapfre Moto3 Press Release
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