First front row start of the season for Gadea
Rain has surprised the riders of the 125cc qualifying session at the Italian Grand Prix, which takes place tomorrow at the Mugello circuit. This has practically reduced the session to twelve minutes. Against the odds a few drops of rain started to fall with still 28 minutes to go and the grid positions were finalized with the laptimes they had set at that time since there was no possibility of improving in the wet conditions. This circumstance was good for Sergio Gadea who posted the third fastest time and will start from the front row for the first time this year. The Puçol rider was also the fastest in the rain-interrupted second practice yesterday and this morning he was the third fastest in FP3 on a circuit where he’s had good results in the past [he stood on the podium twice] and us confident to take advantage of that when it comes to fighting for victory.
Maverick Viñales in contrast to that has suffered, yet gotten into the third row of the grid with the seventh fastest time, breaking a streak of four consecutive front row starts, the last two from pole. The rider from Roses had some engine problems in the free practice this morning and in the hardest part of Mugello, the third sector, he could not ride as he wanted due to the rain and he will have to make good use of the twenty minutes of warmup to try a few things to finish the setup of his Aprilia.
33 Sergio Gadea (3° 2’00.903, +1,915): “I’m happy because we’ve not been on the front row for some time. Although we achieved this in some rare circumstances I think I was ready. We always have rain, it’s incredible, and despite going out with a used tire and even risking a possible break I decided to push as hard as I could when I saw that a few drops began to fall and it went well because I’ve gotten into the front row for the first time this season. Step by step we are going a long way and although we still need a little more for the setting and I don’t have the bike to my taste 100% we still have the warm up to finish refining these details. This is a track I’m good at and I’ve achieved good results here and I hope to take advantage of this to go and fight for my first win of the year. I want to thank the team for the work and I hope to reward them with a good result.”
25 MAVERICK VIÑALES (7° 2’01.201, +2,213): “The rain annoyed us a lot, because we still have to do work on several things that we planned to test in this qualifying session and it has complicated the adaptation. Since this morning things didn’t go well. This is a very difficult circuit and I couldn’t get to ride comfortable, I latched on to several riders to see various lines which I didn’t have very clear, but I lack kilometers. In the third sector I didn’t have the best lines, but now I do. We rode very little because of rain yesterday in the second practice, I did only a few laps, and in the qualifying it started to rain very soon and that has hurt us. Tomorrow we take advantage of the warm up to get a little better. We worked very well to test what we couldn’t do today because of the rain, especially to get the most out the engine. The goal is the same as always, start well and have a good race to try to get a good result.”
Source: Team BQR
