Front row start for Elias at Mugello

Team Gresini rider Toni Elias never ceases to amaze. After two tough free practice sessions yesterday and an off-track excursion during qualifying this afternoon the Spaniard bounced back with a sensational lap at the end of the session to secure a front row start for tomorrow’s race, as he prepares to defend his Moto2 World Championship lead. His team-mate Vladimir Ivanov also showed great determination today without achieving the desired result. The objective for both riders tomorrow will be to work well in warm-up to shave vital tenths off their race pace.

Toni Elias ( 2nd 1’ 55” 858 ) “I put everything into that last lap! I’m really pleased because we did the job we had to do today and got ourselves a position that should allow us to fight at the front tomorrow. Now we have to focus on the warm-up because our race pace still isn’t great. We had a few ideas on how to improve it today but we didn’t want to try them because it was too risky – the focus was on setting one fast lap to secure a good grid position. We’ll try a few solutions tomorrow morning and hopefully find that half a second that, combined with a good start, can propel us to the front.”

Fausto Gresini “Toni never ceases to amaze me – he has relentless determination. He was struggling but he made a good grid position his main objective and he managed it. Now with the help of the team he will try to find a better solution for his race pace. The warm-up isn’t long but him and the guys have a clear idea of what they’re going to do and I have complete faith in them for the race.”