Elias and Terol confident of potential despite difficult qualifying

The Moto2 class contested qualifying at Silverstone with the need to set a fast lap time early as an insurance policy against potential rainfall. The rain did indeed arrive, 16 minutes from the end of the session, but that did not drop the pace of the intermediate category competitors. Redding and Smith were once again looking for a top home time, but were again bested by Spaniard Pol Espargaró at the end of qualifying. He, along with the Brits and Andrea Iannone, are the main favourites for victory tomorrow.

There was a morning crash at Silverstone for Toni Elías, affecting the Spaniard’s work schedule for qualifying. The MAPFRE Aspar rider struggled to recover his feel for his Moto2 machine in the afternoon, and placed 22nd after clocking his best time on his thirteen of sixteen laps. Elías still believes that a good race is possible on Sunday afternoon and will be doing all that he can to ensure that is the case. Teammate Nico Terol also had problems, due to the strong wind that complicated matters at the British track. He also has faith in his team and the upturn in results experienced since the French GP, so will be pushing for points on race day.

22nd Toni Elías 2.10.473 (16 laps): “I had a stupid crash this morning on the fast part of the second sector. The bike ended up against the wall and, although my team repaired it perfectly, it didn’t feel the same in qualifying. We will look to see if everything is in order tonight and check that there are no issues caused by the crash. We started with a great pace yesterday and were expecting more from this second day. Tomorrow we start from near the back and it will be a hard race, but I am going to try and do as well as possible early on to recover positions. We shall see what setting to use, but I believe that a fightback is possible.”

27th Nico Terol 2.11.713 (18 laps): “In the afternoon session we made a radical change. We loaded more weight on the front in order to get the bike cornering better on the fast corners. It looks as if we have a little improvement and I felt a lot more comfortable on corner entry, but the problems start when we open the throttle. Maybe that is because of the wind, but the bike was driving over to the rumble strip on every turn and I couldn’t pick it up. It was a tough session, but we aren’t going to settle. We have been getting better with every race, we are working very hard and I am sure that with some hard work ahead of tomorrow we can move up the field.”

Source: Team Aspar Press Release