Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo managed to find some pace in this afternoon’s qualifying session to put his YZR-M1 third on the grid for tomorrow’s 23-lap Aragon Grand Prix.
The Spaniard has been struggling for pace all weekend, Lorenzo finding that his Yamaha is lacking a lot of edge grip on both the front and rear. Having looked like he was about to fall into QP1 at one stage in FP3, Lorenzo managed to turn around his fortunes in qualifying.
With Honda’s Marc Marquez firmly secured in pole position right from his first flying lap, the rest of the top 12 were embroiled in a battle for the front row. It was a close-fought affair, especially between the riders from second to seventh on the time sheets.
Lorenzo’s initial best had put him in the middle of the second row in fifth and, as the clock counted down, it looked as if the front row was put of reach. But, a final effort of 1m47.778s elevated him to third and just three hundredths of a second off of second-placed Maverick Vinales.
Despite a decent qualifying, the Spaniard remains concerned about the race. With temperatures having been typically high at Aragon so far, it seems as if the hard rear and front combination will be the optimal tyre choice, but Lorenzo’s pace relative to his rivals was pretty poor on it. On the softer compounds, Lorenzo is much closer but the drop off on them is pretty severe around Aragon.
The Spaniard will have 20 minutes tomorrow morning in the warm up session to make a final decision, but there may yet be some hope on the horizon for him. Forecasts predict cooler temperatures for race day, and this may just make the softer compounds the optimal choice.
“This morning with the soft front tyre I was competitive, just like yesterday. The only problem is that when we put in a hard-and-hard combination on this bike and with my riding, that I‘m too slow,” he explained.
“The other‘s don‘t suffer so much and can be competitive, so we have to decide if tomorrow it‘s possible to use the soft rear tyre, because with that option we are maybe not as fast as our main rival, but we are OK. With the hard one, it‘s difficult, so let‘s see if the soft tyre is the right option, because it looks like after 10 or 15 laps especially the right side is destroyed.”
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