4th place on Phillip Island grid for Maverick Viñales

The protégée of Sito Pons, Maverick Viñales, achieved the fourth best time in the qualifying practice of the GP of Australia that took place today at the circuit of Philip Island.

The rider of the Páginas Amarillas HP 40 team will start from the first position of the second row of the grid in tomorrow’s race. Viñales, repeating the starting position achieved at the Japanese GP last week, has his mind set on fighting for what would be his third win of the season.

The rider from Rosas has been testing some modifications on his Kalex which he and the team thought would help to improve the time achieved in the morning session. But this configuration didn’t work to their liking and the team went back to the previous setting towards the end of the qualifying session.

It was then that 19-year-old Viñales improved his time to finish fourth, which secured him a start from the second row of the grid tomorrow.

It was more difficult for his teammate in the Páginas Amarillas HP 40 team, Luis Salom, who suffered a spectacular crash at the very beginning of the first free practice session on Friday. Salom has had to overcome the pain resulting from this fall and also had to try and beat the clock to complete all scheduled work on bike and setup due to the missed session on Friday.

Luis finished 22nd and will start tomorrow’s race from the eighth row of the grid with the goal of finishing in the top ten.

Maverick Viñales – 4th place – 1.32.712
I’m happy. At first we lost a bit of time because we started with a few changes that have not worked very well. This has hurt us a lot but once we put the bike back to the previous setting, I was able to do about seven or eight good laps which give us the rhythm for tomorrow’s race.

Luis Salom – 22nd place – 1.33.566
The session was good because we’ve managed to improve the times, despite having lost the session of Friday and having damaged the shoulder. We’re lacking a little to be among the top ten, but this is where we are and we have to work hard to try and improve. Tomorrow we’ll have to make a good start and make up as many positions as possible.

Source: Pons Racing