Xavi Vierge qualifies 20th at Aragon, Isaac Viñales 30th
Tech3 Racing Team rider Xavi Vierge will begin his quest to seize a point scoring result at the Aragon Grand Prix from the middle for the 7th row of the grid after battling tirelessly in the challenging qualifying session today.
The Spaniard commenced his day by continuing his work with the Tech3 team on the new Mistral 610 chassis in FP3, which he finished only a second back from 6th position. This progress left the 19-year-old confident for the afternoon shootout and here, he leapt into action and set a time of 1’54.775 on his third lap.
The 2015 CEV title runner-up pushed to increase his pace as the clock counted down, but his chances of qualifying higher were halted when he unfortunately fell at the 8th turn whilst running on his final lap. Nevertheless, his personal best left him 0.774 back from the rear of the third row, and tomorrow, he fully intends to undertake a solid start and then fight his way into the top fifteen in front of his fans.
On the opposite side of the Tech3 Racing Team pit box, Isaac Viñales endured more tough luck in Aragon and will begin the 14th round of the 2016 World Championship from the 10th row of the grid.
The intermediate class rookie jumped into action when the FP3 session kicked off as he worked closely with the Tech3 Racing Team to adjust the setup of the Mistral 610 to make the Spaniard feel more comfortable. In the afternoon, he carried on pushing, yet Viñales continued to struggle due to the pain from his recently injured shoulder. He set his fastest time on his penultimate lap and will seek to move up the field in tomorrow’s race.
Xavi Vierge
“I felt optimistic about qualifying after the good results in every other session, so it’s a bit disappointing to start tomorrow’s race from 20th on the grid. In FP3 I set my fastest time on old tyres after focusing on my rhythm which was good this morning. The performance left me feeling upbeat about my chances in the afternoon, yet there, I only advanced by one tenth of a second which was not enough. Now I need to work with the team in order to find out how to improve so that we can close the weekend positively before we head away to the flyaway races. Anyway, I am confident that we can improve overnight and the target as always, is finishing inside the top fifteen.”
Isaac Viñales
“It was a very tricky day for myself and the team even though we tried our best to get a good qualifying position. My injured shoulder started to hurt again, which limited my performance but I tried to power through. However, the track conditions were also challenging and I never felt completely comfortable on the bike because of these two reasons. Nevertheless, we will work overnight and hopefully we can have a better day tomorrow.”
Source: Tech3
