Jordi Torres heads up Aspar’s Moto2 squad on Sepang grid

Mixed weather conditions at Sepang have hit the Moto2 class hardest so far this weekend with the rain again arriving just in time for their final free practice this morning but thankfully abating for qualifying in the afternoon. Scott Redding and Pol Espargaró battled for pole position with the Brit dominating the early exchanges before a strong finish from the Spaniard secured front spot on tomorrow’s grid.

MAPFRE Aspar riders Jordi Torres and Nico Terol will start from the sixth and seventh row of the grid respectively. Jordi worked hard to improve his set-up today but is still struggling to find good handling in the corners and he could only lap 1.7 seconds off pole position today. Nico will start from two places behind his team-mate, a positive weekend of practice having come to a grinding halt on the seventh lap of qualifying when he crashed in turn six.

18th Jordi Torres 2.08.705 (18 laps):
“We made a few changes before the rain came this morning and took a step forward, which translated well to the wet setting. We made some more changes for the afternoon but I didn’t manage to go any faster. We need more confidence with the front end under braking and even though we haven’t qualified where we want the good thing is that we know where we need to improve and how to achieve it. This is a difficult track and you need a lot of laps to understand certain things. We are competitive in T1 and T2 but struggling in T3 and T4 so hopefully we can find more grip in the race, get the bike picked up better and make some improvements.”

20th Nico Terol 2.08.798 (7 laps):
“The weekend was going great up and yesterday our pace was very strong in the dry. We had a gearbox problem on the first lap this morning and I had to come in, then the rain came so we just made use of the time to test the wet tyres and a couple of other things. I struggled to get on the pace this afternoon but eventually got into the 2’08s. Then I came in to try the hard front, which I hadn’t used up to that point, and pushed hard from the first lap. I was flying through the first sector but lost the front in turn six. That was the end of the session for us and it was a shame. The important thing is that I’m okay and the team are doing a great job. I am sure me and the bike will be back to 100% tomorrow so we can fight for a good result.”

Source: Aspar Media