Ángel Nieto Team MotoGP - Qatar GP QP

2018-03-17 16:17
Karel Abraham and Álvaro Bautista will start from the seventh row of the grid at the MotoGp season opener
The first MotoGP pole of 2018 went to Johann Zarco, as the Frenchman set a time of 1:53.680 at the Losail International Circuit that took almost 3 tenths off the track record. Alongside him, Marc Márquez will start the season from second position on the grid, with Danilo Petrucci completing the front row. Andrea Dovizioso, last year’s runner-up in the MotoGP World Championship, will start from fifth position in a race that will be held at 7pm (local time, GMT +3).

The Angel Nieto Team will kick off the first race of the season with a single goal in mind: To climb up the order and to place inside the points. Karel Abraham and Álvaro Bautista have both had a good feeling this weekend, although the former will start from the seventh row and his teammate 21st. Abraham missed the opportunity to complete a late fast lap, when another rider's tyre warmer got caught up in his bike. He was forced to stop to remove the object and lost time as a result. The Czech was able to put in just one hot lap, and believes that he could have gone a couple of tenths faster and placed two rows further up the grid. Bautista continues to fight against a lack of rear grip and is looking for solutions to improve his cornering in Qatar.


19th Karel Abraham 1:55.392: "It seems that this circuit is better for me at night than in the morning. In the first session of the day we had some problems, and in addition there was a strong wind and the track was a little dirty. In qualifying, I was riding alone until I was joined up with by another rider. I let him pass so that I could follow him, and it was good for me because I set a good time. On the second run, when I started from the box, a tyre warmer somehow got caught up in my rear wheel. I didn't know it was there, but another rider pointed it out and I noticed it when I got on the brakes. I had to stop the bike and my mechanics had to run over to release it. I was only able to do one hot lap, and it was good enough to improve my time, but if I could have completed a second lap it would have been better -since I felt good and knew where I could improve. It's a shame, as we could have lowered he time by a couple of tenths and started from a few positions higher up. I'm happy, in general, but there's a bittersweet feeling about how everything went. Tomorrow I want to fight for the points."


21st Álvaro Bautista 1:55.638: "We have continued working to see if we can improve the contact with the tyre on the asphalt. The circumstances in the morning were extreme, as a lot of dust was lifted up by the wind. In the first practice it was difficult to lower our times from yesterday. We have also been testing things but we are not able to get it quite right. In the second session we saw that maybe we have to improve in other aspects; looking for the rear grip makes us lose something with the front. We have to try to corner faster. We'll see if we can improve in that aspect tomorrow, to see if what we lose on the one hand we gain on the other."

Source:

Click here to visit our forums to discuss this story