MR POLE POSITION MARTIN DOES IT AGAIN AT ASSEN
It has been another exciting Saturday of racing for Team Del Conca Gresini Moto3, which takes pole position for the eighth race of the 2017 Moto3 World Championship at Assen courtesy of yet another stellar performance by Jorge Martin, who came out victorious at the end of a thrilling battle in the final minutes of qualifying.
With his sixth pole out of eight races, Martin proves to be almost unbeatable on the single lap. This time, the 19-year-old Spanish rider was able to put together the perfect last lap to place a 0.8secs gap between himself and second place (Bendsneyder) and more than a second on Bulega in third.
Fabio Di Giannantonio will line up on the seventh row of the grid for the Moto3 race of the Dutch GP, which is scheduled to get underway at 11:00 local time (GMT +2). After finding a good feeling with his Honda NSF250RW in dry conditions yesterday, his progression was halted by two crashes, from which he escaped uninjured.
“Six pole positions this year, five of which in a row and this last one under the rain” says an ecstatic Fausto Gresini. “Jorge is really a great rider! Now it’s time to be first on Sunday, too. I’m sorry for Fabio and his crashes, but I have no doubt he will be up there battling for honours.”
1st – JORGE MARTIN #88
“Qualifying was very different compared to FP3. It was hard to find the right feeling but, aside from the pole position, I’m happy with the pace we found for the race. I battled until the very end with Bo (Bendsneyder), who obviously gets the support of his home fans, and we managed to score a great result. If it rains tomorrow anything can happen: there’s very little grip so I’ll be hard to stay upright, while with dry track the goal will be to push hard from the beginning and battle until the end.”
21st – FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO #21
“This is the first ‘disastrous’ day of the season. It’s a shame, because we were doing really well this morning and I thought I would have been competitive today. This morning I made a mistake at the last chicane and switched gears a bit too early. In qualifying the track was quite slippery and I made another mistake at turn 9. I went on the gas two or three metres earlier and crashed. From then on my confidence was lost and didn’t feel like I could push 100% anymore. We’re far behind on the grid, but I’m sure that, no matter the conditions, we will have a great race tomorrow.”
