Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Take Fourth and Fifth Row in Motegi Qualifying
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16/10/2017
Qualifying
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP's Maverick Viñales came just short of getting promoted from Q1 and will start tomorrow's Motul Grand Prix of Japan from 14th place on the grid. Circuit conditions were uncertain as a dry line started to form at the start of the second 15-minute shoot out.
After finishing outside the top-10 in this morning's FP3 session, Viñales had to enter Q1 but looked to be a strong contender for advancement to Q2. The Spaniard didn't linger at the start of the first qualifying heat and immediately set the provisional fastest time on his first flying lap, but dropped back to third place when he visited the pit box to put in an extra soft tyre.
He was sitting in fourth position when he resumed his attack and set a 1'55.916s for second place, but was pushed back two positions in the final stages. Back in fourth place, the Factory Yamaha rider put this head down once more, but was unable to further improve his position in the timesheets. He will start tomorrow's race from fifth row on the grid, from 14th place.
Maverick Viñales
Position: 14th - Time: 1'55.916 - Laps: 6
"I had the same problem today as I had all year in the wet: I had a lot of spin and couldn't ride the bike the way I wanted to in these conditions. We are working hard and giving it everything. The qualifying result is what it is and now we focus on working for tomorrow. We know where we're losing time, but it's difficult to fix it in just one weekend. We are going to do our best, we'll try to improve for tomorrow and score as many points as possible."
Massimo Meregalli
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP - Team Director
"Today's results were not what we had hoped for. The changing circumstances on the circuit in Q2 made it difficult to understand what the track conditions would be like. Maverick was on the attack in Q1 and set a 1'55.916s on the super soft tyre. It was a shame that he missed out on advancing to Q2 by just 0.072s, because starting from the fifth row is quite challenging. Now we will assemble the data from today's sessions and prepare some setting tweaks we can test in tomorrow's warm up."
