Maverick Viñales puts Suzuki on Silverstone front row

 In MotoGP, News

maverick-vinales

Team SUZUKI ECSTAR’s Maverick Viñales battled treacherous wet weather conditions to put his GSX-RR onto the front row of the grid in tomorrow’s Octo British GP at Silverstone while team-mate Aleix Espargaró will start from row four.

Both riders qualified directly to Q2 from FP3 this morning’s drier session, Viñales scoring second position just 0.003 from fastest and Espargaró in ninth. But conditions worsened during the afternoon. The expected rain finally arrived and the team reacted as planned. FP4 proved to be a hard session for both riders, struggling to find a good feeling and lap with consistent and fast times.

The modifications applied for the Qualifying, and with the track becoming more consistent in grip, helped Viñales to score his third front-row start of the season.

Maverick Viñales:
“The session today was really difficult, in FP4 when rain came I really couldn’t find any feeling with the bike, the track was so slippery and I was very worried. Luckily my team did a great job, I must be grateful to them because they changed the set-up and the electronics for the Q2 and the machine resulted to be much more easy to ride. We have also struggled a lot in the wet, while now finally all in a sudden we are there and competitive with the others. The position looks good for a positive race, either in sun and rain.”

Aleix Espargaró:
“The morning was very good with the tyre for the race, the hard one, as Maverick and myself have been the only riders to ride consistently in the 2’01s. Unfortunately, the qualifying was not good, I struggled a lot with the rain both in FP4 and in Q2, the feeling with the rear end was not good at all and couldn’t find the needed confidence. I hope that tomorrow the weather forecasts are right and we’ll get a dry race, as in those conditions, I feel very competitive.”

Source: Suzuki

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