Fifth and sixth row for Repsol Honda Team riders

The four sessions held on Saturday all featured a completely dry track, although under grey skies.

Pol Espargaró finished FP3 outside the cut-off to go directly into Q2. In Q1, the Repsol Honda Team rider was second fastest for much of the run, but his best time of 1:29.475 left him 0.125 away from making it into the second session. He will start from fifteenth on the grid.

Stefan Bradl experienced a similar situation to that of his teammate. The German failed to make it into Q2 and, with a best time of 1:29.809, will be on the sixth row of the grid, in eighteenth.

Rider statements

#POL44

“Another tricky Saturday but we come here and keep pushing like always. The best Honda was Taka today, just a little bit ahead of us and I think we both did close to the maximum. We need to improve in Warm Up because right now we are not with the top group and we need to work specifically on the spinning with this bike. But let’s see what happens tomorrow when the lights go out, we line up and we give our best like always.”

#SB6

“The results continue in line with what we have been experiencing but I am continuing to get faster and faster. If it goes our way tomorrow, I would like to be fighting for some points. There’s still work to do and the track isn’t helping us at the moment, but this is what it is. The first lap will be critical tomorrow, even with the chicane it will be a really big fight. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow and then start looking to Misano.”