Aspar Ducati’s Karel Abraham stunned in this afternoon’s MotoGP qualifying session in damp conditions, the Czech rider guiding his GP15 to a career-best second on the grid.
Abraham impressed yesterday when he put his two-year-old Ducati third on the combined times and straight through to QP2, an achievement made all the more noteworthy as both factory Ducatis failed to do the same.
The Czech rider was confident of being able to carry that momentum forward into today, and despite the iffy conditions, which he has not experienced on a MotoGP bike for a couple of years, Abraham exploited the strengths of the Desmosedici to great effect.
Abraham slotted in behind pole man Marc Marquez on his final flying lap, and used this reference to produce a 1m48.275s to put him second on the grid, seven tenths away from the factory Honda rider.
“This feels amazing, it feels just great,” an exultant Abraham said.
“The conditions today have been really bad since this morning, but I really enjoyed qualifying. I love this circuit, which helped, and yesterday we made a strong start.”
The Aspar rider held no illusion that repeating his Friday heroics would be an easy task, and admits that doing the same in tomorrow’s 25-lap grand prix will be even tougher.
However, he knows just how much of a advantage starting on the front row is at this circuit, and is prepared to use it to maximum effect to bring home the strong result he knows is achievable.
“I knew it would be difficult for us to prove that we could stay at the top today, and tomorrow it will be even harder but our targets have not changed.
“We know what we want and what we need to achieve, and we will work for that. This result puts us at a great advantage for tomorrow’s race.”
Team-mate Alvaro Bautista came into qualifying on the back foot as changeable conditions in both FP3 and FP4 stopped him from making adjustments to the set-up of his electronics. He’ll start the race from 10th on the grid.
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