RODRIGO AND ALCOBA’S SATURDAY ENDS WITH Q1
#GermanGP qualifying. It was an unusual day for Team Indonesian Racing Gresini Moto3 who for the first time in a while sees none of its standard bearers in Q2.
Since the introduction of the two-session qualifying format (2019) this is the first time both Gresini riders could not make it into the final qualifying session, with a similar situation in terms of overall qualifying result that last happened in 2017 at the Sachsenring with Di Giannantonio 25th and Martin – who dominated qualifying prior to that event – out of action after injuring himself in FP3.
It was a very tough day for Gabriel Rodrigo: a crash at turn 3 resulted in the Argentine rider having to tackle Q1 without having ridden with the softer tyre option prior to that session – although he was confident in light of his strong race pace. The pain in both feet due to the crash surely limited his performance, but ‘luckily’ Rodrigo struggled more with the right-hand corners.
Jeremy Alcoba, who has proved to have become a real qualifying artist, had to surrender to the still incomplete knowledge of the track. The Spaniard missed the direct seed to Q2 for only two tenths of a second and in the afternoon could not make the most of the little time available.
Generally speaking it was a chaotic qualifying session, which also saw a black flag deployed for Binder, which may have a different taste if race direction will inflict more penalties which may move up Rodrigo and Alcoba on the grid.
The race will get underway at the traditional time of 11:00 (GMT +2).
19th – GABRIEL RODRIGO #2 (1’28.051)
“Unfortunately the day started on the wrong foot this morning. I followed Foggia in a line that wasn’t mine and ended up in a bump that made me crash. I hit quite hard both feet and in this moment the right one is hurting me the most… But we’ll be fine for the race. I must say I’m a little upset with the behaviour of many riders on track in qualifying and I hope that race direction will address these situations at some point today.”
20th – JEREMY ALCOBA #52 (1’28.178)
“We did today’s first run with the hard tyre and maybe the softer option would have allowed us to set a Q2-worthy, but we missed by two tenths of a second. We were coming from a good string of results in qualifying so I’m not worrying too much. We have the pace to do a good race, even though there aren’t many spots to overtake. There have been comebacks this year already so we could have one ourselves.”
