The comeback to Argentina following two years of absence was a tricky one for riders and teams, as logistical issues stopped the MotoGP World Championship from kicking off on Friday as usual.
Therefore, Saturday has been fully packed and the WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team riders did two 60-minutes Free Practice session and headed straight to Qualifying from there.
The shortened track time was crucial for WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team’s Andrea Dovizioso, who has never ridden his Yamaha YZR-M1 at the Argentinean circuit before. He used FP1 and FP2 to study the layout again and improved from session one to session two by nearly one second.
In Qualifying one, he went again 0.811 seconds faster, but missed out on the last tickets to Q2 by 0.415 seconds. Dovi will start the third round of the 2022 MotoGP World Championship from row six on the grid.
Tomorrow’s Warm Up will start earlier than originally scheduled at 10:20 local time (15:20 CET) and is extended to 40 minutes in order to give the riders more time to re-adapt to the Termas the Rio Hondo Circuit.
The Gran Premio Michelin de la República Argentina, the third race of 2022 will get underway according to plan at 15:00 local time (20:00 CET).
Andrea Dovizioso #04
P 18“It has not been an easy day overall. I’m struggling with the rear grip like before and here it is very low. For me it’s even worse and I feel like I can’t really play with the bike like I want to. It’s difficult. In the end, the Qualifying time was pretty ok though compared to other riders, but to be honest, I don’t feel very competitive. I’m not able to make a step exit by exit, like I wish to, because I’m not riding well enough. In the end, the lap time was acceptable, but not enough to be in a decent position. P18 seems to be more or less my position in the practice, which is unfortunately the reality at the moment. But we will work hard to get the best out of the race tomorrow.”