Second row starts for Pedrosa and Márquez

I think we may fight for the podium

twittear

Dani Pedrosa, who took three pole positions at Mugello in 2010, 2012 and 2013, will start from fifth place on the grid tomorrow.

Marc Márquez was second in FP3 and third in FP4 -3 and 1 tenth off the best times, respectively.

Track temperatures in FP4 and Q2 exceeded 50ºC for the second consecutive day.

Marc Márquez

Honestly, I didn’t have my best qualifying today. I made a few mistakes and then I calculated the slipstream wrong when I caught Zarco too early on my last flying lap. I had the second-best ideal time, but we didn’t do it in one lap! In FP4 I was able to have quite a fast race pace on used tyres, which is positive, but then in qualifying we didn’t do our best, in part because we struggled with the front tyre, which is a bit too soft. Anyway, we’re not far off with the setup, so tomorrow we must make the right choice with the front and then I think we may fight for the podium.

Dani Pedrosa

I think all in all, we achieved a good qualifying result today, because at this track it’s quite easy to be followed and lose some positions. But in the end, I think fifth is a good result. Lap times weren’t extremely fast, maybe because it was very hot and it was difficult to do good lap times. Anyway, we worked a lot with the tyres, gathering the information to make our choice tomorrow. There are several other riders with a good pace, but we must focus on our bike and tyres, trying to do our best with them, to get a good start, to be strong in the first couple of laps, and then to keep up a good pace.