Aleix Espargaro 13th on the grid for Australian GP

MotoGP qualifying for the Australian GP saw plenty of entertainment and surprise. After Jorge Lorenzo dominated yesterday in the first two free practices and Dani Pedrosa did the same today, qualifying featured the fastest times of the weekend on the newly resurfaced Phillip Island track.

Lorenzo hit a seagull in the session, but not even that could stop him from leading the way. Later, Marc Marquez momentarily stole the top spot, but on his last attempt Lorenzo was the only rider to breach the 1.28 mark to take pole, with a spectacular time of 1.27.899.

Of the CRT riders, the equality between Colin Edwards, Randy De Puniet and Aleix Espargarò suggests a fun race is in store.

Aleix Espargaró lines up in 13th spot on the grid. The Spaniard improved his feeling today and, although he could not qualify for QP2 due to traffic, appeared calm and aware that he has a good pace at Phillip Island. He will look to move up the order on race day.

13th Aleix Espargaró 1.30.081:
“Today we had a bit of bad luck. This morning, when I was completing a lap, I came across another rider in the last sector and that prevented me from improving. I was one tenth off qualifying for QP2. In the afternoon, in QP1, I also had a lot of traffic to deal with. In any case, the most important time is tomorrow, and as we have good pace I’m calm and think we will have a fun race. The bike is working perfectly, we have improved our feeling with it from the first day. We have also tested several front tyres that have allowed us to draw several conclusions. Our times have been positive, similar to those of Colin and Randy who were the fastest CRT riders today. We have a good setup for the race, we have done a great job and I feel very satisfied.”

Source: Aspar Media