POLE AND RECORD FOR MARTIN AT SEPANG AS DIGGIA DOES NOT GIVE UP
Jorge Martin will have his first match point for the world title tomorrow as he will line up on pole position for the eleventh time this year in what will be the penultimate race of the 2018 Moto3 World Championship. The young Spaniard also set the new outright lap record for the category at the #MalaysianGP in the process.
While making the most of perfect track conditions in his last QP outing on the long Sepang International Circuit, the Team Del Conca Gresini Moto3 rider logged an extraordinary 2’11.731secs lap-time which shattered the previous record of Mir from last year (2’12.078); he will be joined on the front of the grid tomorrow morning by title rival Bezzecchi and by Tony Arbolino.
Fabio Di Giannantonio had a much more complicated day as he was only able to get a fifth-row qualifying result. The Italian rider had a one-second gap from his team mate as the chequered flag of qualifying practice was waved and will not focus on what is probably going to be the most important race comeback in his young career.
The seventeenth race of the quarter-litre class of MotoGP will get underway tomorrow at 11:00 local time (GMT+8).
1st– JORGE MARTIN #88
“It’s been a bit of a difficult lap because we didn’t have much dry time and the bike set-up wasn’t perfect. I already had set a great lap-time in my second outing, but I wasn’t sure if that was enough to claim pole position. In the end it was. We need to do some fine-tuning tomorrow, but I hope the leading group will be as small as possible so that I can battle for the title with Marco. We are very close in terms of speed and pace, so it could be a good fight between the two of us.”
13º – FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO #21
“A day to forget. In the morning we were perfect under mixed conditions, even with very used tyres, while in the afternoon I had some issues with the front tyre, which didn’t allow me to improve in the last outing. We need to put together a great race tomorrow so we must stay focused and positive.”
