Jorge Lorenzo continued to set the pace in Saturday morning practice for the Gran Premio d’Italia TIM. There was more drama for Marc Marquez, who suffered a third crash in as many sessions and will have to take part in Q1 Qualifying for the first time.
Having already topped the timesheets on Friday, Yamaha Factory Racing’s Lorenzo has improved the Mugello pace to 1’47.972. That led Repsol Honda Team’s Dani Pedrosa by a quarter of a second, with Stefan Bradl making the top three for LCR Honda MotoGP. The first group of five was completed by Lorenzo’s teammate Valentino Rossi – with a turtle-inspired helmet design – and GO&FUN Honda Gresini’s Alvaro Bautista.
Britain’s Cal Crutchlow was sixth for Monster Yamaha Tech 3 from a trio of Ducati Team entries, as Andrea Dovizioso (despite much neck pain due to a Friday accident) led Nicky Hayden and Michele Pirro, with the latter back on the GP13 Lab bike he first raced in Jerez just under a month ago. Leading CRT runner Aleix Espargaro rounded out the top ten for Power Electronics Aspar, whereas Tech 3’s Bradley Smith rode to 13th with a damaged wrist (also after a crash 24 hours earlier).
It has been revealed that Marquez – who was fortunate to escape a high-speed scare on Friday – has suffered a crack in the top of his humerus near the right shoulder, intensifying his task of needing to improve from 14th position on aggregate in order to pass directly into Q2 Qualifying. He finished 12th, missing out by less than two tenths of a second, but can still make Q2 should he finish in the top two of Q1. His latest session was not helped by another fall, this time at Correntaio corner.
Gresini CRT runner Bryan Staring and Avintia Blusens’ Hiroshi Aoyama also crashed in third practice, at Palagio and Savelli curves respectively, but both the Australian and Japanese CRT riders were able to walk away.
Following the fourth practice session which has no bearing on the Q2 running order, Qualifying for the Gran Premio d’Italia TIM begins at 2:10pm local time (GMT +2).
source : motogp.com
Comments