Comeback to the 1st row for Xavi Vierge in France
After Marcel Schrötter and Xavi Vierge controlled the last free practice session on Saturday morning in sunny France, finishing in positions one and two, the Dynavolt Intact GP duo managed to achieve their goal of making it into the first or second row.
Xavi Vierge recorded an immense improvement compared to Friday, where he was still in 18th place. In qualifying, he set his best time of 1’36.390 on the Bugatti Grand Prix Circuit right at the start of the session. He jumped directly into second place behind championship leader Francesco Bagnaia, where both remained unbeaten until the end. When trying to undergo his time in the last lap, the 21-year-old crashed in the fast chicane. Fortunately, he was unharmed and was happy to return to the front row again since he had been there the last time in Argentina.
Xavi Vierge:
“It was a bit strange because at the beginning of the session the grip was very good. In the middle of the Qualifying I preferred to stay in the box to remain calm before trying to improve my lap time. But when I went out from the first lap on I felt the grip was different. Every lap I made a mistake and that’s not normal, but we tried it all. When I went into the fast chicane in the last lap, I entered similar than before but then I lost the front. I don’t understand why. Anyway, I think we really did a good job and we have the rhythm for tomorrow but five or six riders are incredibly fast. The most difficult part of the race will be the last ten laps. It is going a to be a really long race. We need to make a difference in the lap times and try to adjust everything to be able to fight tomorrow. Le Mans is a short track and many riders are always waiting for someone fast to hang on to but in a track like this, it makes it more difficult to have a good space on the circuit. Yesterday, in every session I started last and that wasn’t good, so today I started to go out, as one of the first and that was much better. We were able to do four or five laps alone and that was important to find a rhythm. We hope to have a positive result here tomorrow and do a good job, but on race day everything is different. We will try to fight all the race and get on the podium.”