FIM Moto2 World Championship Losail International Circuit Doha, Qatar March 18, 2011 Free Practice Three Results (all using Honda engines and Dunlop tires): 1. Stefan BRADL, Germany (KALEX), 2:00.882 2. Marc MARQUEZ, Spain (SUTER), 2:01.754 3. Andrea IANNONE, Italy (SUTER), 2:01.784 4. Yuki TAKAHASHI, Japan (MORIWAKI), 2:01.888 5. Julian SIMON, Spain (SUTER), 2:02.005 6. Scott REDDING, Great Britain (SUTER), 2:02.049 7. Thomas LUTHI, Switzerland (SUTER), 2:02.099 8. Jules CLUZEL, France (SUTER), 2:02.109 9. Simone CORSI, Italy (FTR), 2:02.295 10. Alex DE ANGELIS, San Marino (MOTOBI), 2:02.301 11. Michele PIRRO, Italy (MORIWAKI), 2:02.390 12. Max NEUKIRCHNER, Germany (MZ-RE HONDA), 2:02.410 13. Aleix ESPARGARO, Spain (PONS KALEX), 2:02.462 14. Mattia PASINI, Italy (FTR), 2:02.519 15. Claudio CORTI, Italy (SUTER), 2:02.696 16. Kenan SOFUOGLU, Turkey (SUTER), 2:02.741 17. Bradley SMITH, Great Britain (TECH 3), 2:02.763 18. Esteve RABAT, Spain (FTR), 2:02.970 19. Javier FORES, Spain (SUTER), 2:03.167 20. Yonny HERNANDEZ, Colombia (FTR), 2:03.257 21. Mike DI MEGLIO, France (TECH 3), 2:03.308 22. Mika KALLIO, Finland (SUTER), 2:03.314 23. Axel PONS, Spain (PONS KALEX), 2:03.454 24. Randy KRUMMENACHER, Switzerland (KALEX), 2:03.490 25. Pol ESPARGARO, Spain (FTR), 2:03.633 26. Xavier SIMEON, Belgium (TECH 3), 2:04.195 27. Dominique AEGERTER, Switzerland (SUTER), 2:04.215 28. Kev COGHLAN, Great Britain (FTR), 2:04.276 29. Alex BALDOLINI, Italy (SUTER), 2:04.404 30. Kenny NOYES, USA (FTR), 2:04.428 31. Valentin DEBISE, France (FTR), 2:04.460 32. Ricard CARDUS, Spain (MORIWAKI), 2:04.589 33. Raffaele DE ROSA, Italy (MORIWAKI), 2:04.618 34. Ratthapark WILAIROT, Thailand (FTR), 2:04.731 35. Anthony WEST, Australia (MZ-RE HONDA), 2:04.878 36. Robertino PIETRI, Venezuela (SUTER), 2:04.885 37. Santiago HERNANDEZ, Colombia (FTR), 2:05.473 38. Nasser Hasan AL MALKI, Qatar (MORIWAKI), 2:05.986 39. Mashel AL NAIMI, Qatar (MORIWAKI), 2:06.311 More, from a press release issued by Marc VDS Racing Team: REDDING CONTINUES FAST FORM IN QATAR Scott Redding continued his impressive start to the 2011 Moto2 World Championship in Qatar tonight, the British rider finishing the third and final practice session in sixth position. A best lap of 2.02.049 in blustery conditions saw Redding finish just over 0.2s away from second position, though his best lap of 2.01.748 in the second session last night secured him third place on the combined practice leaderboard. The Moto2 field only had one practice session this evening and Redding and Marc VDS teammate Mika Kallio spent the 45-minutes focussing on improving the set-up they worked on when the new season kicked off under the Losail International Circuit floodlights last night. Conditions though were far from ideal as a fierce wind continued to batter the 5.38km circuit, making it difficult for Redding and Kallio to initially find a consistent rhythm. Redding though was a permanent fixture inside the top ten for most of the session, the 18-year-old working hard to improve his pace in the final sector leading onto the long start/finish straight. It was a challenging evening for Kallio, the Finn working closely with his crew chief Trevor Morris to improve front-end feeling in the fast sections of the track. Weight distribution modifications to his Suter MMX1 machine unfortunately failed to improve his feeling on corner entry and he ended 22nd on the timesheets with a best lap of 2.03.314. That was 0.072s quicker than his previous best time to leave him 23rd on the combined charts. The Marc VDS Racing Team will be back on track tomorrow evening at 6.55pm (local time) for the decisive qualifying session, which will be the first experience of a new format that will see three instead of four riders make up each row. Scott Redding #45 – 2.02.049 – 16 laps “I’m happy to be in the top six and I’m in the ballpark with the rest of the fast guys, but Bradl’s lap time is pretty impressive. The wind seemed much stronger tonight and it was quite unpredictable, so it would get under the bike when you didn’t expect it and that it made it difficult to build up a rhythm. I still feel pretty good on the bike and we’ve got some ideas to improve further tomorrow night because the gearing feels a bit short in places. I’m losing the most time in the last section and I think a big part of that is on the straight. I haven’t followed anybody yet to get a tow and that will probably give me a bit more time, because a slipstream makes a big difference. Tomorrow night is going to be crucial with the new grid rule. Three on a row instead of four makes qualifying even more important and it is going to make those final few minutes pretty breathtaking. I’m definitely up for the challenge and it is going to be interesting.” Mika Kallio #36 – 2.03.314 – 17 laps “It was another difficult session and unfortunately we couldn’t find a solution to the turning problem I have. We put a lot more weight on the front at the start of the session but I was still not able to enter the corner how I’d like. We put the bike back to the same balance as last night and I was able to lap just a little bit quicker, but I need to be much faster. I’ll analyse the data with my crew tonight and I’m sure we can come up with a solution to give me confidence for tomorrow night.” Michael Bartholemy – Team Manager “Scott is once again one of the fastest riders on the track and he is only two tenths away from second position. We are happy about that even though the gap to the front is quite big, but I am confident that Scott and his crew will find some more improvements again tomorrow. It has not been easy in practice because only one set of tyres are suiting this track and that limits your options quite a lot. It is the same for everybody but it would be nice to try something different with the tyres to improve the lap time. I was expecting to see Mika a little bit higher on the timesheets but I am sure we can make him more confident with the bike tomorrow. We will experience the new qualifying format tomorrow with three riders per row, so it is going to be intense, exciting but also a big challenge. The Marc VDS Racing Team will be working hard to make sure Scott and Mika are able to challenge for a good grid position.” More, from a press release issued by JiR Moto2 Team: GP of Qatar, third free practice session The final free practice session of the Qatar GP has just ended and Alex De Angelis has registered a clear improvement ending the session with a best lap of 2’02.301 which gives him tenth place. After the troubles with traction registered yesterday the team made a dramatic change in their development path by applying a different set-up to the rear shock, giving Alex the chance of cutting seven-tenths of second away from yesterday’s time. Tomorrow the technicians will try to make as big an improvement also on the new Ohlins front forks to give Alex the confidence needed to find a consistent pace for the race to be able to battle with the fastest riders. The session was dominated by the excellent performance of the German Stefan Bradl who leads by more than eight-tenths of second from the second rider on the timesheets. Alex DeAngelis “I’m pretty satisfied with today because we made a sensible improvement on my MotoBI. With a different set up to the rear I finally found the confidence to be as aggressive as I like. I started to get the trust with the whole package that let me bring the machine to its limits and this got better and better lap after lap. We still have some margin for improvement and I’m sure that tomorrow we will manage to make another step forward and we will exploit also the time in warm-up to find the best compromise for the race.”