Frustration for Rabat and Espargaro in Mugello qualifying, Pons optimistic about progress
Tito Rabat and Pol Espargaró didn’t have their best days at Mugello during qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix. Tito, who was fastest yesterday and second this morning, eventually posted the sixth fastest laptime and will start from the end of the second row tomorrow.
Pol, who was fastest in the morning practice, couldn’t repeat that feat in the afternoon and will start from tenth, on the fourth row on the grid and still needing to improve his setup in the warmup.
Axel Pons made steady progress during the practice sessions and will start from the sixth row with the goal to escape all the race incidents that have affected his first part of the season heavily.
6. TITO RABAT, 1.53.383 “I still struggle a bit to handle the bike and obviously I was more confident yesterday, being in first position, but I am clam, because I have a very good race pace and I think that I’, ready to fight for podium positions. We found a pretty good setup and I want to thank the team for constantly searching for solutions to improve, even if it’s only for a thousanth of a second.”
10. POL ESPARGARÓ, 1.53.678 “Being fastest in the morning session and then tenth on the grid is a huge drop and we have to analyze this calmly. Once again I struggle and make mistakes getting the bike into the corners, especially at this highly technical and demanding track, and I also ran into some traffic in my last fast lap. In the morning session I was consistently in teh 1’53s and when it counted I had a hard time getting to those laptimes. I hope we can find a solution in the warmup and be competitive in the race.”
18. AXEL PONS, 1.54.232 “In the morning we lost the entire practice due to a problem with the engine and I was unable to test different solutions for the setting that we had prepared. In the afternoon I think I performed pretty well and I am only a second behind the front row, much better than in the first races of the year. I think we can do a good race and I hope to escape from all the incidents that have plagued me until now.”
Source: Pons Racing
