A solid end of the session rewards Johann Zarco's determination with the third-best time in qualifying in this qualifying day at the GP of Italy.
The Frenchman had a bad start to the day with a crash at the very beginning of this morning's session that involved also Pol Espargaro and made the MotoBI unserviceable for the remaining 40 minutes of the session. In the afternoon Zarco worked hard on his machine and managed, well supported by the Team, to finalize a good set up that gave him positive feeling to score a 1m52.781s lap that would give him the 3rd place on the grid. Unfortunately, tomorrow the Frenchman will start from 18th place on the grid following the 15-place penalty given him from Race Direction for this morning's accident.
The issues for Eric Granado, were in particular the hot temperature of the Tarmac that prevents tyres to work as efficiently as they did yesterday. He worked hard to get the right line around the circuit as well as changing his riding style to suit his MotoBI. His hard work eventually led to the Brazilian reducing his gap to the pole to less than four seconds.
Tomorrow's front row will be composed of the pole man Pol Espargaro followed by Marc Marquez and Andrea Iannone.
Johann Zarco
"Unfortunately this morning I made contact with Espargaro and we both crashed. The Race Direction decided to give me the penalty and I accept their decision, the most important thing is that he is OK shown by the fact that he took pole. In qualifying things went better, we worked hard to find the best set-up according also to the hot weather that came to the track and at the very end I managed to get the third-best time that gives me the chance of starting not too far from the front of the grid. I'm expecting a very hard race, this category is highly competitive and the time we lost this morning prevented us to finalize the race pace, on which we'll work in the warm-up. We need to see the telemetry to understand the variables that let me achieve the qualifying time, I'm determined for a good recovery considering that this circuit leaves margins for that, even if the priority as usual is to arrive at the end of the race, although with as many points as possible."
Eric Granado
"I'm not totally satisfied with the qualifying, honestly I hoped for a better result. I struggled in finding the right feeling with my MotoBI because today was so much hotter than yesterday and this affected also the tyre performances. The machine slid a lot and I need to get more confidence with this riding style and to control the grip even when there isn't a lot of grip to be had. Moreover this track is really technical and demanding, tomorrow I will do my best to find the right rhythm for the race and keep it until the end of the race."
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