Bautista continues strong form to qualify ninth at Sachsenring

2018-07-16 07:50
Ángel Nieto Team rider enjoys best Saturday of the season and maintains recent momentum



In qualifying for the German GP, Marc Márquez's ninth consecutive pole position at the Sachsenring was in jeopardy until a final push from the reigning World Champion. Danilo Petrucci had clocked a 1:20.295 that seemed unbeatable in the closing minutes, until Márquez put in a perfect lap on his last attempt, lowering Petrucci’s time by 25 thousandths of a second. Márquez’Sachsenring streak, which started in 2010 when he competed in 125cc, means that he will start ahead of Petrucci and Jorge Lorenzo, who provide a Ducati double on the front row.

For the second consecutive race weekend, Álvaro Bautista got his best grid position of the campaign. The Ángel Nieto Team rider will start from ninth position, finishing qualifying four tenths of a second off Marc Márquez's pole time. Bautista was on course to improve his time on his last lap, going through the third sector of the circuit less than two tenths off the pole lap, but lost the front end of the bike and crashed. Karel Abraham will start from the eighth row of the grid after a pair of incidents on his best lap cost him a valuable tenths and several positions. The Czech rider lowered his time from yesterday and has been setting positive laps at Sachsenring, but it was not enough to achieve a better position on the grid.



9th Álvaro Bautista 1:20.700: "We have confidence and a good pace for tomorrow. I feel good on the bike. This is the second consecutive race that we have got into Q2 and the feeling with the Ducati is good. We will see tomorrow if we can take advantage of this ninth position, which is my best placing of the year, and get into the front group from the start. I’m not setting any goal for tomorrow; my idea is to start well, be focused on the first laps -as you have to be careful on such a narrow track- and, as I said, fight to be there with the front group. The race is very long and the tyres will play a factor in the final phase. It was a shame about the crash because I was close to pole. I don’t think I would have taken pole, because the last sector is more difficult for me, but I think I could have placed on the second row. I was pushing, because I was one tenth from pole, and I lost the front. When you ride at the limit, these things happen."

23rd Karel Abraham 1:22.159: "In today's qualifying session I lowered my fastest time at this track again, but I think we could have gone even faster. For some reason, on the last lap, Zarco backed off and stayed on the racing line, so I had to avoid him and I lost a couple of tenths. In addition, at Turn 5 I had a scare that also prevented me from further lowering my time. The bike is going better, but there are still a couple of points where we can’t do much more. I'm not happy with the position, and I think that in terms of times we could have got a 1:21.5 or a 1:21.7, but we weren’t able to do it.”

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