Espargaro and Rabat disappointed to miss out on front row, Pons still looking to improve further
Pol Espargaró and Tito Rabat weren’t able to maintain their positions in the top four during the qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix at Losail, scene of the first Moto2 race of the 2012 season. But after their good performances in free practice they’ve also finished the warmup in first and second, showing their good pace for the race on Sunday.
The two riders of Team Pons 40 HP Tuenti showed an excellent pace, but due to little effectiveness of one tyre compound and a lot of traffic in the final minutes of the qualifying they weren’t able to reach the first row of the grid. Polyccio didn’t manage to improve his laptime from yesterday while Tito bettered his own by four tenths. Teammate Axel Pons also made another step forward, improving by over half a second, but he still has a lot of margin for improvement and a lot of work ahead of him to fight for points.
4. POL ESPARGARÓ, 2.00.597 “We couldn’t get the tyres from practice to work, mainly the second compound which didn’t allow me to stay among the three fastest like in the free practice sessions. I’m a bit disappointed, but I have a good pace and I’m confident to be among the front runners after getting a good feeling back in the warmup. It’s been a tough session, where I’ve had a coming together with another rider which almost caused me to crash and afterwards I had several moments because of the rear tyre.”
7. TITO RABAT, 2.00.793 “I feel a bit strange, because on the one hand I’m satisfied as this is my best result in a Moto2 qualifying, but on the other hand I couldn’t repeat the top four position of the free practices. I’ve run into a lot of traffic in the final part of the session, losing the final two laps, and we also didn’t chose the right tyre to get a good laptime. Despite this I improved my laptime from yesterday by four tenths and my pace is good enough to fight for top positions. I’ll be aiming to get a good start and stay in front, but after how the warmup went I think I’m able to do that.”
24. AXEL PONS, 2.02.535 “I’ve shaved off another half second from my laptime, but I’m still quite far from the positions I’d like to be in. I’m not satisfied, I still have to keep pushing and look forward to the race and the next ones to come. This start of the season has been tough, but the whole team is doing everything to progress further and once we’ve found a definitive setting we’ll surely make a big jump in the standings.”
Source: Pons Racing
