Quartararo and Morbidelli get action underway at Aragon GP

2019-09-23 06:59
PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team riders Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli got action underway for this weekend’s Gran Premio de Aragon at the MotorLand Aragon circuit, ending the day in fourth and 14th on combined times after today’s two practice sessions - and targeting improvements for tomorrow.

Quartararo was able to once again show his podium speed from last time out in Misano to battle for top honours at the end of the day, finishing up only a tenth of a second from second place. With fast race pace as well as one-lap speed, his strong opening play at Aragon means that he’s perfectly poised to add to his tally of front-row starts in tomorrow’s qualifying session.

It was a less fortunate day for team-mate Morbidelli, who finished in P14 despite feeling fast and confident all day with the Yamaha YZR-M1. Finishing this morning’s session in ninth, but just missing out on a Q2 spot after spending the afternoon working on his set-up for the race, he knows that he has work to do in the morning - but as usual he isn’t getting fazed as he also aims to make it into the front two rows in qualifying.

The action at MotorLand Aragon gets underway tomorrow 0955 local time (1555 Malaysian time) with practice and at 1410 local time (2010 Malaysian time) for qualifying, ahead of Sunday’s 23-lap race at the Gran Premio de Aragon.



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Result
Franco Morbidelli
14th (1'49.104)

Result
Fabio Quartararo
4th (1'48.117)

“The end result is a pity because I felt very good on the bike, using a really hard setting in the afternoon even though wasn’t the perfect option for me. Strangely, when I put in new tyres for a time attack I only improved two tenths when I should have been able to improve at least a second, so it didn’t allow me to reach the top ten. But I’m confident with the bike, even though we’ve got a few things to improve. We’ll see how the weather is in the morning and if we can attack again to go straight to Q2 or if it’s going to rain all day.”

“I think P4 isn’t bad for a rookie at the end of the first day at Aragon! I’m feeling quite good and we’ve worked a lot on race pace today, but we’re not at 100% with the bike just yet. We’ve got a few areas to work on, but we’ll see what tomorrow’s weather brings. I’m struggling in sector four, but we know where the problem areas are and we’re not in bad shape considering it’s my first time here. The good thing is that we’ve already got a Q2 spot if it’s raining in the morning, so I’m happy with how the day has gone and looking forward to sitting down with my crew and trying to improve the bike.”
MotoGP Practice Results - Gran Premio de Aragon
POS. RIDER NUM TEAM TIME
1 Marc Marquez 93 Repsol Honda Team 1'46.869
2 Maverick Viñales 12 Monster Energy Yamaha +1.145
3 Valentino Rossi 46 Monster Energy Yamaha +1.202

Source: SIC Racing Team

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