The Mission Winnow Ducati team resumed action today at Montmeló (Spain) for the qualifying session of the Grand Prix of Catalunya, the seventh round of the 2019 MotoGP World Championship. In sunny weather conditions – with 25 degrees in the atmosphere and almost 50 on the tarmac – Andrea Dovizioso seized second row on the starting grid for tomorrow’s race in sixth position.
Dovizioso gained direct access to Q2 after finishing FP3 in sixth position with only four tenths of a second separating the top ten riders. Despite the increasing track temperatures and, consequently, lower grip levels, Dovizioso basically equalled his personal best – set in the morning during FP3 – in the second and decisive qualifying session to post a 1:39.777, only 0.297 seconds slower than the pole position time.
*UPDATE: due to a three-position grid penalty inflicted to Maverick Viñales for “irresponsible riding” during Q2, Andrea Dovizioso will start tomorrow’s race from fifth position.
Andrea Dovizioso (#04 Mission Winnow Ducati) – 1:39.777 (5th)
“I’m happy with our starting position because today the track conditions were particularly tricky in terms of grip and it was really easy to make mistakes, so to start tomorrow’s race from the top two rows is OK. The race pace remains to be seen because grip is really low, as we can infer from the slower lap times compared with the past. We had another example also in FP4, during which the riders tried practically every possible combination of tyres, which means there are still questions to be answered. We worked well so far and we are in the front group, but gaps are really narrow and it’s difficult to gauge the potential of our rivals. We’re competitive but we’ll need to be very smart tomorrow and manage the race without making mistakes.”
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