After overnight rain there was a damp start to proceedings in FP3, meaning it was difficult for anyone to improve on their Friday pace. After both finishing in the Top 10 yesterday, it looked like Team SUZUKI ECSTAR’s riders were both assured a place in Q2, but towards the end of the session Andrea Iannone was bumped out of the Top 10 overall. Marking the first time this season that Iannone has not gone directly to Q2.

FP4 was used by Alex Rins to finalise settings ahead of qualifying, and was used by Andrea Iannone to try and find the pace needed for Q1’s big battle. Interestingly, both riders finished the session with exactly the same lap time (1:33.336).

The track temperature reached 40c for Q1 and Iannone pushed in the early laps to get within the vital Top 2. But as the chequered flag flew he finished the session 3rd, despite only being 0.177 seconds off. He will start from 13th tomorrow.

Rins initially ran in the Top 5 in a fast-paced final qualifying, the Spaniard ended Q2 in 10th place with a 1:32.338, 0.709 seconds from the top.

Davide Brivio - Team Manager

“We’re a little disappointed today because we expected better results. This morning the conditions were difficult with the damp track, and with these conditions Andrea missed out on Q2, and then he couldn’t manage to get through from Q1, so he’ll start 13th. Andrea’s pace isn’t bad, so he needs to get a really good start tomorrow. Alex was in good shape but Q2 was quite fast and it wasn’t easy to improve, he will start in 10th position and we have to work to find a bit more pace, so we’ll work tonight to try and put both riders in the best possible situation and try to have a nice race tomorrow.”


Alex Rins

“The first objective was to get into Q2 and we managed to do that. And the second target was to be second or third row, we’re actually on the fourth, so we need to continue working. I was riding behind another rider and I can see that we need to continue working on traction, it’s a small problem that we need to fix in order to come back to the front group. I’m losing some time on corner exit, and in the Warm-Up tomorrow we’ll try to improve that.

Andrea Iannone

“I thought I had a good strategy in FP3, but in the end I went out of the Top 10. I crashed yesterday in FP2 and I wasn’t able to use my potential, so that made everything today more difficult. In any case, I tried my best in Q1 but I didn’t make the best lap time, but in the end everybody is very close on times. Maybe we don’t have the best pace, but we’re not so far from the top. So we’ll try to improve the bike a little bit for tomorrow, especially on braking points, but let’s see and we’ll try our best.”