Traffic in the final stages keeps Espargaro from better qualifying position

Bad day for the Pramac Racing Team. After the excellent first free practice session of yesterday afternoon that saw both riders near the top ten, the outcome of the qualifying session on Laguna Seca’s track are a bit disappointment. The riders, Aleix Espargarò and Mika Kallio, have in fact completed the tests valid for the Grand Prix starting grid of the United States respectively in thirteenth and fifteenth position. The Spaniard had finished this morning free practice in tenth position and from him it was expecting much more in this afternoon qualify.Both have improved their lap times but it was not enough to climb the ranking. Both riders will have to considerably improve their position tomorrow to get a good result in tomorrow’s race that will begin at 2pm local time.

Fabiano Sterlacchini – Pramac Racing Technical Director
“We knew that we were going to had difficulty on this track where both riders have never raced before. It’s a very short track if you look to the length, but is full of pitfalls; you should have more feeling with the track to be fast. Tomorrow morning during the warm up we will try to make our riders ride their bike as much as possible and make a few changes to the settings we used today. Two seconds slower than Lorenzo’s pole position are really too much. We will work hard tonight with the data obtained today to help our riders to be comfortable on this track.”

Aleix Espargarò – Pramac Racing Team – 13th best time in 1’22 .712
“This track is wonderful but you have to know every bit. I improved by almost three tenths of a second my best lap time of yesterday’s free practice, but it was not enough to gain a better position. A pity, because this morning I was again in tenth position. I haven’t had a good lap pace during my last exit from the pits, I did my best lap after just five laps but I didn’t improve my lap time in the remaining six laps before the checkered flag, I had traffic problems or I made some small mistakes that did not allow me to be fast. Tomorrow morning I’ll try to take advantage of the entire warm up to get more feeling with the circuit. I’ll give everything to get a good result.”

Source: Pramac Racing