FIM Moto2 World Championship Brno, Czech Republic August 13 Qualifying Results (all using Honda engines and Dunlop tires): 1. Marc MARQUEZ, Spain (SUTER), 2:02.493 2. Stefan BRADL, Germany (KALEX), 2:02.704 3. Alex DE ANGELIS, San Marino (MOTOBI), 2:02.725 4. Thomas LUTHI, Switzerland (SUTER), 2:02.848 5. Andrea IANNONE, Italy (SUTER), 2:02.943 6. Aleix ESPARGARO, Spain (PONS KALEX), 2:03.461 7. Simone CORSI, Italy (FTR), 2:03.497 8. Mattia PASINI, Italy (FTR), 2:03.523 9. Claudio CORTI, Italy (SUTER), 2:03.545 10. Randy KRUMMENACHER, Switzerland (KALEX), 2:03.606 11. Jules CLUZEL, France (SUTER), 2:03.627 12. Dominique AEGERTER, Switzerland (SUTER), 2:03.662 13. Kenan SOFUOGLU, Turkey (SUTER), 2:03.702 14. Pol ESPARGARO, Spain (FTR), 2:03.715 15. Max NEUKIRCHNER, Germany (MZ-RE HONDA), 2:03.749 16. Bradley SMITH, Great Britain (TECH 3), 2:03.844 17. Yuki TAKAHASHI, Japan (MORIWAKI), 2:03.849 18. Esteve RABAT, Spain (FTR), 2:03.898 19. Valentin DEBISE, France (FTR), 2:04.005 20. Scott REDDING, Great Britain (SUTER), 2:04.025 21. Ratthapark WILAIROT, Thailand (FTR), 2:04.082 22. Michele PIRRO, Italy (MORIWAKI), 2:04.153 23. Jordi TORRES, Spain (SUTER), 2:04.178 24. Mike DI MEGLIO, France (TECH 3), 2:04.320 25. Robertino PIETRI, Venezuela (SUTER), 2:04.351 26. Ricard CARDUS, Spain (MORIWAKI), 2:04.488 27. Axel PONS, Spain (PONS KALEX), 2:04.574 28. Carmelo MORALES, Spain (SUTER), 2:04.586 29. Yonny HERNANDEZ, Colombia (FTR), 2:04.623 30. Mika KALLIO, Finland (SUTER), 2:04.823 31. Alex BALDOLINI, Italy (SUTER), 2:04.915 32. Kenny NOYES, USA (FTR), 2:04.957 33. Xavier SIMEON, Belgium (TECH 3), 2:05.220 34. Anthony WEST, Australia (MZ-RE HONDA), 2:05.713 35. Steven ODENDAAL, South Africa (SUTER), 2:05.991 36. Santiago HERNANDEZ, Colombia (FTR), 2:06.349 37. Mashel AL NAIMI, Qatar (MORIWAKI), 2:07.505 38. Tommaso LORENZETTI, Italy (FTR), 2:08.257 39. Julian SIMON, Spain (SUTER), no time recorded More, from a press release issued by JiR Moto2 Team: GP of the Czech Republic, qualifying: De Angelis on front row The race weekend continues well for Team JiR at the Brno circuit, where today qualifying was held for the GP of the Czech Republic. Alex De Angelis confirmed the good feeling he found with his MotoBI, staying always in the upper part of the classifications, both in wet free practice this morning and in this afternoon’s dry qualifying session. The harmony with the configuration prepared by JiR Team’s technicians let him to push hard, which saw him at the top of the timing sheets for a while and ending the session with a best lap in 2’02.725, which gives him a front row for tomorrow. Better than him were only the Spaniard Marc Marquez who got the pole and the provisional WC leader Stefan Bradl. Before tomorrow’s race this is first positive result and rewards the efforts made by Gianluca Montiron’s Team and the progress made in the MotoBI’s development shown in recent races. Alex DeAngelis The first row is always a good result, today we fixed those two or three things on my MotoBI that let me cut down my lap times and be consistently within the fastest, furthermore we already found a good set up and tyre configuration for tomorrow. We still have a couple of elements that can be investigated tomorrow in the warm-up we shall see what kind of responses we get from them, in particular to consolidate tyre management and verify their reaction on the track. Although the weather could not force us to find a set-up for wet conditions. The response we had in the last two days is coherent with the progress we’ve shown in the latest races and is important not only for the position on the grid but also because it shows that tomorrow I will be able to battle with the fastest riders. I’ll try to exploit the position on the front row to be immediately aggressive and to set a race in attack to gain a good result. More, from a press release issued by Tech 3: Difficult return to action for Xavier Siméon in Brno Xavier Siméon experienced a very difficult weekend so far at the Czech Grand Prix in Brno finishing today’s qualifying session in 33rd position. The Youngster from Belgium is not happy with his feeling with the Mistral 610 bike this weekend and reported chattering he had not felt as strong as this weekend before. To finish within the points will be a difficult mission for tomorrow’s race, the 21 year old said after he achieved his grid position and he will use the warm up to find a set up solution together with his Tech3 B Team before the 20 laps race starts. Xavier Siméon, 33rd – 2’05.220, 17 laps:g> “žSince the beginning of the weekend it has been really difficult for me. I have some problems that I haven’t experienced as intense as now this year and it is difficult to solve them. I have a lot of chattering and some problems in turning the bike. And especially on this track you need the speed in the corner and you need to turn the bike very well to gain some time. We tried some settings in the qualifying to see if we can improve my feeling, but unfortunately it was not better. My rhythm here is not so bad, but also not very good I have to say. I need to find four or five tenths of a second to be able to finish within the points tomorrow. Maybe it will be my most difficult race so far this season. I don’t know why, but this weekend we really struggle with the set up with which I was quite happy before the summer break. If we have a dry warm up tomorrow we can test another set up and see if I can get some tenths, as like this it is very difficult to get a good result.” More, from another press release issued by Tech 3: Smith and di Meglio ready for Brno battle Tech 3 Racing Team riders Bradley Smith and Mike di Meglio remain confident they can deliver a valuable points haul in tomorrow’s Czech Republic Moto2 round at the Brno circuit. Smith is optimistic he can continue his impressive rookie campaign in the ultra-competitive Moto2 class, despite qualifying outside of the top 10 for only the fourth time in 10 races earlier today. After this morning’s final practice was run on a drying track after heavy early rain, this afternoon’s qualifying session took place on a full dry track, allowing Smith to gain crucial set-up information on his Mistral 610 machine in race trim. The British rider, who currently si ts fifth in the World Championship rankings, clocked a best time of 2.03.844 to finish less than 0.5s away from the top six. The 20-year-old has demonstrated several times this season an amazing overtaking ability and he’s confident he can mount a top 10 challenge in tomorrow’s 20-lap encounter. French rider di Meglio will start a further eight places further down the grid in 24th position. He was able to set a personal best time of 2.04.320 but he was only able to complete 11-laps after his machine developed a technical issue that prevented him from taking part in the decisive final minutes of the session. Bradley Smith 16th 2.03.844 17 laps: “Obviously today was a little bit of a struggle. I am really happy with my performance and I don’t believe I could have done a better lap time, but we need to find something for tomorrow. It looks like in the group that we want to fight with we need to find 0.4s a lap. I don’t think we have the pace to fight for the podium tomorrow, so we have to be realistic and do damage limitation for the World Championship. We need to try and find the time from somewhere, but unless there is a miracle I don’t think that is going to happen. We found 0.7s from yesterday so we can find big chunks of time and we will continue to push hard and work on the rear grip for tomorrow. We need to find a little bit better balance so we can be faster in the corners.” Mike di Meglio 24th 2.04.320 11 laps: “It is very difficult to finish the qualifying in the pits without having the chance to fight for a good grid position. For the qualifying we used a new tyre and when I came back in the box the team told me that there was something broken on the engine. I don’t k now what and how, but I could not start again. I think we could have been in the top 10 today, so I am frustrated. I need a good start tomorrow to see what I can do in the race but I will be looking to fight my way through.” More, from a press release issued by Marc VDS Racing Team: REDDING AND KALLIO SEEK BIG IMPROVEMENTS FOR BRNO RACE Marc VDS Racing Team riders Scott Redding and Mika Kallio are determined to bounce back from disappointing qualifying performances, to fight for strong results in tomorrow’s Czech Republic Moto2 race. Redding was unable to build on the momentum gained from his eighth place finish in practice in this afternoon’s qualifying session, his 20th position on the grid falling well below expectations. The British rider was unable to find a confidence-inspiring set-up with his Suter MMXI machine that allowed him to post more competitive lap times, and despite his best efforts to improve his pace, a lack of front and rear feeling left him only marginally faster than his practice pace. The 18-year-old ended with a quickest lap of 2.04.025 and the intensity of the competition in Moto2 was evident again this afternoon, with Redding’s time a fraction over 0.5s away from the top seven. Kallio’s problematic weekend continued today and he will need to call on all his race craft and overtaking skills to fight his way into points-scoring contention from 30th place on the grid. The Finnish rider was again plagued by a severe chatter issue that prevented him from lapping faster than 2.04.623. He now plans a big set-up gamble for the pre-race warm-up session to try and find a solution that will help him attack in tomorrow’s 20-lap race, which is the 10th round of the 2011 Moto2 World Championship. Scott Redding #45 – 2.04.025 – 18 laps – 20th position “Today has followed a similar pattern to some of the other races this year where I can only match my time from the first practice in qualifying while everybody else takes a big step forward. I don’t really understand why there’s no real improvement from Friday to Saturday and sometimes I’m slower. I’m putting in my maximum effort and pushing the front everywhere and having moments because I am desperately trying to make it work. It is not through a lack of trying and I’m doing my best to compensate for the bike. But in every corner the front is pushing and we’ve been having trouble with it jumping out of gear a lot this weekend. It jumps out of fifth into a false neutral, so tomorrow all I can do is try and be consistent and try and break into the top 10.” Mika Kallio #36 – 2.04.823 – 17 laps – 30th position “Today was a pretty much identical problem to yesterday in that I can’t ride as fast as I’d like with so much chatter. The situation at the moment is really tough and the bike feels the worst it has done all season and I am struggling to explain why. The setting for this track doesn’t work at all and that has been a big surprise because in Mugello and Sachsenring the bike worked well with similar settings to what we started with here in Brno. Right from the start I’ve had a lot of problems with the chatter and we have tried many different solutions to solve the issue without any success. I can feel the changes we make on the bike but the chatter is still there all of the time. High 2.04s is my limit but we will completely change the bike balance again tonight and gamble to see if we can improve in the race.” Michael Bartholemy – Team Manager “There is not a lot to say other than that today was bitterly disappointing and very frustrating. Honestly speaking, Scott and Mika need to up their game now. It is not normal that a rider of Scott’s calibre doesn’t improve his lap time from practice to qualifying. Starting from 20th will make for a very difficult race and I am not happy that we are in this position yet again. I hope that tomorrow he’ll be able to do the same as he did at Sachsenring and fight his way through the field and into the points. Mika suffered exactly the same problem as yesterday and this is also hard to understand. We completely changed the bike for today and he still had the same chatter issue. There is no miracle cure; he will simply have to adapt and ride around the problem, as many other riders have been forced to do this weekend. To put it bluntly, I expect a much better performance from both our riders in tomorrow’s race.” More, from a press release issued by QMMF Moto2 Team: Cardús and Al-Naimi suffer a set-back in qualifying – but remain confident for the race QMMF Racing Team riders Ricky Cardús and Mishal Al-Naimi suffered a slight set-back in qualifying for the Czech Grand Prix in Brno, with Cardús dropping back to 26th position and Al-Naimi having to settle for 37th place on the grid. Whereas Al-Naimi had trouble with the set-up of his bike and with chattering when he tried to push for a fast lap time on a soft rear tyre compound, Cardús struggled more with his own riding style and his own high ambitions when he kept braking too late and lost his rhythm on the flowing Brno circuit. But both riders keep their chins and their confidence up in order to turn things around in the race tomorrow. “It’s just a lost battle – not a lost war”, said Ricky Cardús. Mashel Al-Naimi 37th in 2.07,505 “When I started the qualifying I felt good but when I saw the lap time, it wasn’t fast at all. I don’t know what happened. I came to the box to change to the soft tyre and to get ready to push for a better time, but this didn’t work out either. I had too much chattering with the soft tyre and didn’t manage to improve. After that, I came in for another pit stop to change something on the set-up for tomorrow, but the bike is still not ready for the race. We will try a different set-up in the warm-up once again. I hope my race will be better than my qualifying!” Ricky Cardús 26th in 2.04,488 “I am a little bit disappointed. We started well into this weekend, and this morning, on a wet track, I even ran within the top 12 or 13 for a while. But when the track dried and we mounted slicks, we once again started to slip back in the time sheets. I really wanted to do well, maybe too well, and I ended up braking in the very last moment, which probably hurt my speed and caused me to drop back to 26th in qualifying. But we lost only a battle, not the war. What counts is the race tomorrow. My aim is to try and ride in the same flowing way I did on Friday. If I can improve my riding, I might even have a chance to fight for points!” More, from a press release issued by Kenny Noyes’ publicist: Tough First Weekend Back At Work For Kenny Noyes Kenny Noyes returned to work at Brno fighting fit and ready to rock after four weeks off his FOGI-Racing FTR, but it’s been a very tough first weekend back at the office for the American. Refreshed after his long layoff, Noyes has struggled to regain the confidence he lost in his tires after racing for the first half of the season with defective tire warmers. That confidence is the missing ingredient during qualifying, and despite the best efforts of his Avintia-STX team, Kenny is still fighting with his confidence in the tires. The overnight rain that carried on into the morning aided Kenny immensely during the Saturday morning session, ending 7th fastest in the wet conditions after a decidedly mediocre first day of practice. But once the track dried in the afternoon, Kenny once again battled to find the confidence in the front end of his FOGI-Racing FTR that his experience with tires overheated by the tire warmers had robbed from him. Kenny worked methodically with his Avintia-STX team, chasing the right group during the final hectic moments of qualifying but the American could only manage the 32nd fastest time. Kenny’s plan for Sunday is simple: get into the rhythm of the race, work on trusting the feel from his bike and work his way as far forward as he can. After a tough first half of the season, knows that he has to get his head down and work, and that the results will come eventually. 32nd, Fastest Lap: 2’04.957 Kenny said, “Man, this has been such a frustrating weekend! There’s a couple of corners where I just can’t get the drive and I can’t figure out where I’m losing the time. I’m working where I can in the slow corners, but I really need to get my confidence back in the fast corners, because that’s where I’m going to make up the time.” “My team have been working real hard, and the bike is just about where it should be. We’re running a very similar setup to my teammates, and in the wet, we can run the same times. Sure, we have a lot of chatter, but then so does everybody else, and they can push through it. I’ve got to get my head around this and get back my trust in the bike.” “I lost a lot of confidence in the first half of the season from the problem with the tire warmers, and this is the second race where everything is back to normal. I just need more laps and more time on the bike to get back to the pace I know I can run at.” More, from a press release issued by AGP Racing/ItalTrans Moto2 Team: A positive day for the Italtrans Team. In a tough qualifying session, Claudio Corti conquered a position inside the top ten and Robertino Pietri qualified just beyond midfield. The day was characterized by variable weather, that made the work complex to all teams. Claudio Corti (2’03″545 9th) “I’m satisfied. It has been necessary to risk a little, going close to the limit, but we got the result we deserved. I don’t know how close my pace can be to my fast lap time we have an annoying vibration. We’ll try to fix it in the warm-up, improving our set-up”. Robertino Pietri (2’04″351 25°) “We did a step ahead with the front yesterday we experienced a problem which was difficult to define immediately after. We worked a lot. Today, in the morning, due to pouring rain, we could not work as we wanted, but nevertheless managed to find a solution. Our pace is good, I hope I can have a good start, for the race”. Claudio Macciotta (Technical Director): “As far as Claudio is concerned, we focused mainly on engine brake and clutch. The outcome was good, but the result on track benefited mainly from the rider, who was able to be ride in a flowing and not too much aggressive way. For the warm-up, we have scheduled something new for the set-up of both rider’s bike, to improve the performance”. Luigi Pansera (Team Manager): “We are improving. Next target must be progressing the race pace as much as we have been able to do with a single-lap”.