Approximately three minutes from the end of the decisive third free-practice session at the Catalan Grand Prix, Michele Pirro posted a time of 1:42.970, with just 1.5 tenths separating him from a direct transfer to the Q2 session.
He then stayed in the top two for much of Q1, which would have put him into Q2 and given him a shot at a better start position. However, he lost a position near the end and will start from the fifth row tomorrow.
Michele Pirro – Ignite Pramac Racing Team
“Unfortunately we were unable to get the best out of the bike’s potential and I struggled a bit but maybe it’s because it’s the first time we’ve had such high temperatures since the start of the championship. This morning we were one second off the best time but the gap widened considerably in the afternoon. So I’d say that as well as the not easy track, the lack of grip and the track temperatures also play an important role. The bike continues to move around a lot and tends to ‘pump’ at the rear and everything becomes even more difficult if the grip drops. As for the set-up we tried to use the one we found at Mugello but once again the results weren’t really positive. It’s strange how things change from one track to another and even from this morning. I had been going quite well and I thought we could have made more progress if we’d worked on the set-up a bit more. The only thing left now is to choose the best set-up for tomorrow and decide what tyre to use; for sure the soft one is better due to the pumping problem because when it kicks in it doesn’t stop until the bike straightens up again. Now we’ll just have to try our best and see what we can do to get a good result in the race.”
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