Espargaro back on pole position at Assen, Rabat qualifies fourth after crash, Pons 27th
Third pole position of the season for Pol Espargaró at the Dutch GP today and the second in session after taking pole in Qatar and Catalunya. Hist fastest laptime was 0.099s faster than the best lap from French rider Johann Zarco and 0.145s faster than championship leader Scott Redding.
Following in fourth is Titor Rabat which suffered a crash in the middle of the session and was left without a chance to improve in the final attack with new tyres. Axel Pons struggled with the setup and despite improving over a half a second he will start tomorrow’s race from the ninth row on the grid.
1. POL ESPARGARÓ, 1.38.734 “We took pole position in difficult conditions, riding in the dry without having the setup completely finished. In teh beginning I could ride fast relatively easy, posting consecutive fast laptimes and the laptime gave me pole position, but I couldn’t repeat that in the final attack with new tyres. I think we have a little margin to improve and if it doesn’t rain we’ll try to find that in the warmup. Both in the dry, a little more, and in the wet we are competitive and tomorrow it will be important to once again make up points on the championship leader. We are coming from behind and have to keep up the pressure and always attack, but be smart.”
4. TITO RABAT, 1.38.973 “I have a good race pace and I think the setup is good for the race. It was a shame about the crash in the middle of the session, because of too much pumping on the front in one of the right handers, but this can happen when you push and I couldn’t do any more laps. Tomorrow I have to start well and move ahead and try to get a good result.”
27. AXEL PONS, 1.40.202 “I had a lot of problems with the setup and I couldn’t put together a good lap. In the morning it seemed like we’d found a good way, but when it counted I didn’t feel comfortable and I will start from far behind, which is risky and forces you to take risks from beginning to end to trying and fight for points.”
Source: Pons Racing
