Frustrating qualifying for Pol Espargaro

Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team rider Pol Espargaro suffered misfortune after falling shortly after beginning the qualifying two session and will start from the fourth row of the grid tomorrow for the 13th round of the 2015 MotoGP World Championship.

The Spaniard kicked off his qualifying day at the 4.2 kilometre circuit by producing a best time of 1’33.012 in this morning’s practice which left him 9th and straight through to QP2 in the afternoon. Here the 24 year old focused and pulled out of the pit lane, determined to secure a solid grid position for the 28 lap sprint tomorrow.

Espargaro completed a time of 1’33.222 on his first flying lap but whilst improving on the following run, he unfortunately fell at the 10th corner of the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli. Unluckily, despite the bike still being in a good condition to ride, Espargaro and the marshals were not able to restart it so time ran out for the 2013 Moto2 World Champion.

Yet, his best lap will see him begin the battle from the rear of the fourth row, plus his time was only four tenths back from his teammate. Nevertheless Espargaro, who is known for his excellent starts, will intend to launch forward tomorrow and jump through the pack and back into the fight for the top six.

Pol Espargaro
“I can’t say too much about the qualifying but obviously, right now I feel frustrated with what has happened, because it has been an unlucky day. Just like yesterday, I felt comfortable with the bike today and we had a good set up from the first free practice. We tried some modifications on the bike following the analysis we did last night and they worked more or less ok, although we still have some margin of improvement to make as we are not where I think we could be at a track like this, especially considering that I have felt strong from the word go. Afterwards, in the FP4, we had a technical issue with one bike, so I had to come back to the box and go out on the other one. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to fix the bike and my team still needs to find out what was wrong. So, I had to face Q2 with just one bike and then the worst thing happened. I did one first lap and when I was in my second flying one I had a small crash. When I was falling, I already knew how stupid the crash was, so once I got up, I tried to start the bike again because it was just slightly damaged, but it was impossible. It’s a real pity because we were doing a good job this weekend, plus I felt strong and able to have a good race. With this mishap I will have to start from the rear of the fourth row on the grid, so I will have to do really well in the beginning, but I still think I have a good pace which I need in order to achieve a solid result tomorrow and I hope I can show it. ”

Source: Tech3 Communications