Losail, Qatar – 18 March 2016: Team
Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS riders Franco Morbidelli and Álex Márquez are
primed for top ten performances in qualifying after strong performances in free
practice at the Losail International Circuit.
Morbidelli
and Marquez were separated by just 0.2s following the completion of the three
free practice sessions for the Qatar Grand Prix.
On
combined rankings Morbidelli (10th) and Marquez (11th) are both within 0.7s of
the fastest time.
The
closeness of the times has set the scene for a highly competitive qualifying
session tomorrow when the first Moto2 pole position of the 2016 season will be
up for grabs.
Morbidelli
used today's third free practice session to concentrate on race pace and
completed 20 laps in the 45-minute session. While 12th in today's final practice
session Morbidelli's impressive time of 1'59.896 from Thursday put him 10th
overall.
Marquez
was also focussed on improving consistency for the race in the final free
practice session and despite being slowed by a chatter issue in his final run on
a new tyre. The Spanish rider was a strong 10th in FP3 and 11th overall ahead of
Saturday qualifying.
Álex
Márquez: 10th - 2'00.032
"I felt really good at the start of the session and we made a good step with tyres and race set-up. But in my second long run we made some changes and had some chatter and then on my final exit on a new tyre it was a little worse so we need to understand that issue. But I'm confident of doing a really good job in qualifying if we go back and work from our base set-up."
"I felt really good at the start of the session and we made a good step with tyres and race set-up. But in my second long run we made some changes and had some chatter and then on my final exit on a new tyre it was a little worse so we need to understand that issue. But I'm confident of doing a really good job in qualifying if we go back and work from our base set-up."
Franco
Morbidelli: 12th - 2'00.282
"My plan in the final free practice session was to make a lot of laps and try build up my pace for the race and we made some good progress. I'm really happy with my performance. We still have some ideas for set-up changes to improve for the race but overall today was really good and I think we can be competitive in both qualifying and the race."
"My plan in the final free practice session was to make a lot of laps and try build up my pace for the race and we made some good progress. I'm really happy with my performance. We still have some ideas for set-up changes to improve for the race but overall today was really good and I think we can be competitive in both qualifying and the race."
Naoya
Kaneko: Marquez Chief Mechanic
"Álex made a good step forward with his consistency and found a few tenths improvement on his race pace. But at the end of the session today the gap to the fastest time was not as close as we expected so we need to analyse the reasons for that."
"Álex made a good step forward with his consistency and found a few tenths improvement on his race pace. But at the end of the session today the gap to the fastest time was not as close as we expected so we need to analyse the reasons for that."
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