MARQUEZ AGAINST THE ODDS, DIGGIA WITH A Q2 VIEW
Smooth Fridays are postponed to the next GP at Barcelona. The racing weekend started out with a bit of scare also in Austria, especially on the Spanish side of the Gresini Racing pit-box. In the early moments of FP1, the #73 had an unfortunate problem with the front suspension. The result? Plenty of time lost and a tyre set thrown into the bin after a handful of kms.
As challenging as it started, the day still finished on a high not thanks to a good FP2 session (which was affected by the arrival of rain), in which Alex Marquez set the eighth-quickest time in the closing stages – a result that places him among the contenders for Spielberg’s pole position.
Fabio Di Giannantonio’s quest to Q2 was only a few milliseconds shy of succeeding. He was sixth-fastest in FP1, before losing a half-dozen positions in FP2. He will have to battle with Marini and Marc Marquez tomorrow in Q1 hoping to place himself in the best position to perform come race time.
8th – ALEX MARQUEZ #73 (1’29.096s)
“It wasn’t an easy Friday. We had a work plan to carry forward, but the morning’s issue has slowed us down. We did a good job in bouncing back and earn a spot in Q2 which is more and more crucial in MotoGP nowadays. We’ll try to recover some time lost tomorrow and make that step forward that could make us really competitive.”
12th – FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO #49 (1’29.310s)
“Unfortunately we set our time in the worse possible condition, and then we had no performing tyre left to respond to the others’ improvements. The pace is good but we know it well: we need to start the races closer to the front and getting the Q2 slot today would have been perfect in order to have less thoughts tomorrow. In any case, we’re in a good place.”
