Cal Crutchlow sounded a warning signal with the quickest time by a comfortable margin in free practice this morning and the British rider backed it up with a pole record lap in qualifying this afternoon at Brno. There was little to separate the top seven riders on the grid however and it promises to be an interesting race here tomorrow, with Alvaro Bautista and Marc Márquez completing the front row.
As close as the lap times were at the front of the grid the battle between the CRTs was equally tight. POWER ELECTRONICS Aspar Aleix Espargaró was forced to contest Q1 on his second bike after a crash just moments earlier in FP4 and even though he pushed hard to finish in the top two and progress to Q2 he finished two tenths of a second short, qualifying thirteenth. The Spaniard heads up a fifth row that also features his team-mate Randy De Puniet, the Frenchman overcoming the traction problems that have dogged the team in recent races but still suffering with front-end chatter that limited his progress.
13th Aleix Espargaró 1.58.378: “We had to spend this morning's session setting up the new engine in our number one bike and it wasn't easy but the mechanics worked against the clock to get things working. The pace is very fast this weekend and we are further away from the official prototypes than usual but that is to be expected at such a long and demanding circuit. We didn't make things any easier for ourselves with a crash in the final free practice this afternoon and even though I wasn't hurt we had to use the second bike for qualifying. I pushed as hard as I could to make it into Q2 but we fell two tenths short. We have work to do to try and be the top CRT tomorrow, just like Indianapolis.”
15th Randy De Puniet 1.58.953: “I am satisfied because we managed to solve the problems we've been having lately with the traction control. We are still lacking grip in some sectors and suffering chatter on the front in a few corners which is costing me some corner speed. The team worked hard and tried some different configurations, which helped us in certain parts of the track but not others so we need to try some more things in warm-up tomorrow.”
Power Electronics Aspar Press Release
