FIM Moto2 World Championship Losail International Circuit Doha, Qatar March 19, 2011 Qualifying Results (all using Honda engines and Dunlop tires): 1. Stefan BRADL, Germany (KALEX), 2:00.168 2. Marc MARQUEZ, Spain (SUTER), 2:00.375 3. Thomas LUTHI, Switzerland (SUTER), 2:00.996 4. Yuki TAKAHASHI, Japan (MORIWAKI), 2:01.179 5. Jules CLUZEL, France (SUTER), 2:01.408 6. Julian SIMON, Spain (SUTER), 2:01.430 7. Bradley SMITH, Great Britain (TECH 3), 2:01.442 8. Alex DE ANGELIS, San Marino (MOTOBI), 2:01.465 9. Michele PIRRO, Italy (MORIWAKI), 2:01.479 10. Scott REDDING, Great Britain (SUTER), 2:01.564 11. Simone CORSI, Italy (FTR), 2:01.574 12. Max NEUKIRCHNER, Germany (MZ-RE HONDA), 2:01.741 13. Mattia PASINI, Italy (FTR), 2:01.893 14. Aleix ESPARGARO, Spain (PONS KALEX), 2:01.895 15. Dominique AEGERTER, Switzerland (SUTER), 2:01.895 16. Andrea IANNONE, Italy (SUTER), 2:01.903 17. Esteve RABAT, Spain (FTR), 2:02.154 18. Claudio CORTI, Italy (SUTER), 2:02.237 19. Mike DI MEGLIO, France (TECH 3), 2:02.352 20. Yonny HERNANDEZ, Colombia (FTR), 2:02.392 21. Javier FORES, Spain (SUTER), 2:02.397 22. Ricard CARDUS, Spain (MORIWAKI), 2:02.505 23. Axel PONS, Spain (PONS KALEX), 2:02.529 24. Pol ESPARGARO, Spain (FTR), 2:02.536 25. Mika KALLIO, Finland (SUTER), 2:02.549 26. Valentin DEBISE, France (FTR), 2:02.828 27. Ratthapark WILAIROT, Thailand (FTR), 2:02.838 28. Kenan SOFUOGLU, Turkey (SUTER), 2:02.847 29. Randy KRUMMENACHER, Switzerland (KALEX), 2:02.897 30. Robertino PIETRI, Venezuela (SUTER), 2:03.151 31. Alex BALDOLINI, Italy (SUTER), 2:03.246 32. Santiago HERNANDEZ, Colombia (FTR), 2:03.264 33. Kev COGHLAN, Great Britain (FTR), 2:03.276 34. Kenny NOYES, USA (FTR), 2:03.461 35. Xavier SIMEON, Belgium (TECH 3), 2:03.657 36. Raffaele DE ROSA, Italy (MORIWAKI), 2:03.684 37. Anthony WEST, Australia (MZ-RE HONDA), 2:04.043 38. Mashel AL NAIMI, Qatar (MORIWAKI), 2:04.875 39. Nasser Hasan AL MALKI, Qatar (MORIWAKI), 2:05.299 More, from a press release issued by Tech 3: Super Smith storms to seventh in Moto2 qualifying debut Bradley Smith produced a dazzling performance under the spectacular Losail International Circuit floodlights in Qatar tonight, the British rider claiming a stunning seventh position in his first ever Moto2 qualifying session. The 20-year-old clocked a best time of 2.01.442 on the new Tech 3 Racing machine to claim a place on the third row of the grid for tomorrow night’s season opening Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar. With each row now made up of three and not four riders in a new qualifying format introduced for 2011, the action in the final ten minutes was as intense as ever. Smith thrived on the pressure though and showed he’s adap ted to the Moto2 class in breathtakingly fast fashion when he jumped into fourth position with just eight minutes of the session remaining. At the end of the 45-minute session, Smith was only 0.012s away from claiming a place on the second row as he comfortably lapped faster than a host of riders boasting more experience in the Moto2 class. Smith is now confident he can fight in the leading group in tomorrow’s 20-lap race. French rider Mike di Meglio was unable to cure a chatter problem that has hindered his progress throughout the opening weekend of the season. He tried a range of set-up changes to try and solve the issue and is confident of making further improvements prior to the race. A lap of 2.02.352 will see him start from 19th on the grid. Bradley Smith 7th 2.01.442 19 laps: “This obviously has been a fantastic qualifying for me. It was my first qualifying session in Moto2 and it went better than I expected. I actually did my best lap time on my with a new tyre, so that gives me a lot of confidence. I did another a few laps behind people too and that helped me learn a lot, which is what I need to do to help build my experience. I still feel that there are some modifications that we can make for the race and I hope it will make easier for me to do a fast lap time. I don’t know if we can improve on the lap time, but making it easier would obviously be a big help. The Tech 3 Racing Team has been working incredibly hard to give me a competitive bike. Seventh position on the grid that gives me a good opportunity to start with the front group and it will help me to get a lot of experience in my first race. I’m really looking forward to it and can’t wait for tomorrow night.” Mike di Meglio 19 th 2.02.352 17 laps: “I’ve had a lot of trouble with chatter right from the start of practice and it has been difficult to find a solution. We need to think very fast now to try to find some answers to get faster. Starting from 19th position will be difficult and I need to be able to do the lap times easier than I can at the moment. But I’m confident my Tech 3 Racing crew have some ideas and we can try and improve for the race and fight for the points.” More, from a press release issued by Marc VDS Racing Team: REDDING TARGETS PODIUM IN SEASON OPENER Scott Redding is confident he can fight for the podium in the opening Moto2 World Championship race in Qatar, despite a difficult qualifying session tonight. The Marc VDS rider started the 45-minute qualifying session confident that gearbox and rear suspension modifications to his Suter MMXI machine would help him continue the impressive form he displayed in practice. But having finished third overall at the end of free practice, the 18-year was unable to find a comfortable rhythm on the 5.38km Losail International Circuit and he will start from 10th position on the grid for tomorrow night’s 20-lap race. A time of 2.01.564 secured Redding a place on the fourth row of the grid with the Moto2 class switching to a new grid format for 2011, with three instead of four riders per row. Mika Kallio made a big improvement with his lap times tonight, the Finnish rider taking full advantage of steering head angle changes to improve front-end confidence to lap 0.8s quicker than he managed in practice. He set a best time of 2.02.549 but his improvement wasn’t reflected on the final results with Kallio preparing to make his debut in the ultra-competitive Moto2 class from 25th position on the grid. In a change to the normal weekend schedule, the Warm-Up session also took place tonight with Redding and Kallio finishing 11th and 19th respectively. Scott Redding #45 – 2.01.564 – 15 laps “That’s not the result I was expecting at all. I couldn’t get the rear tyre to work in the first part of the session and after that I struggled to get into a rhythm. I was trying to do lots of different things to improve my pace but it feels like I’m at the limit of what the bike is capable of doing. We made an improvement with the rear traction but now I don’t have a lot of front feel, so we’ve got to try and find a better balance for the race. I’m pretty sure I could have been a bit faster at the end but as is always the case in Moto2, there was a lot of traffic and some riders just sitting in the middle of the track. That’s not an excuse and I’m not over the moon with the result. With only three riders per row now qualifying is more important than ever, so I’ve got to make a lightning start, get my head down and try and go with the front group.” Mika Kallio #36 – 2.02.549 – 16 laps “Obviously I can’t be happy with my grid position. We actually made the feeling with the front a little bit better than yesterday and I had some more confidence on the entry to the corner. I had more feedback too but the step wasn’t as big as we hoped and I couldn’t improve as much as I needed. It is a little bit strange because at the last test in Jerez my pace and lap times were competitive, so we came to Qatar very optimistic. But I just haven’t been able to show my potential so far. As we saw last year in Moto2, if you don’t qualify well then the race becomes very difficult. We will make some changes to the bike again for the race and hopefully be able to battle for the top 15. At least I want to set some consistent lap times and learn about the bike in race conditions.” Michael Bartholemy – Team Manager “Unfortunately it was a difficult qualifying session and the result is definitely not what we expected, so we have to do a lot better in the race. I thought we were going to be much closer to the front with Scott and Mika, so we are disappointed because both of them struggled for almost the whole session. It was only in the last few minutes that we started to see Scott making some good lap times but it still wasn’t fast enough to be close to the front. After Scott’s performance in winter testing and his third position in practice, we were hoping he would be much higher and at least on the second row. Mika was nearly a second faster than he was in practice, which is encouraging. But he’s quite far down the grid and it will be a difficult race. But we have to show more of the potential of the Marc VDS Racing Team and I am confident we can do that.” More, from a press release issued by JiR Moto2 Team: GP of Qatar, qualifying: 8th place for De Angelis Today saw the first qualifying session of the 2011 Moto2 season at the Losail circuit, in Qatar. After the progress made yesterday, rider Alex De Angelis managed to improve his performance marking a best lap in 2’01.465 that took him to eighth place on the grid. According to the new rules, that sees the race start with three riders to a row, the JiR Moto2 Team’s rider will start tomorrow from the third row of the grid. The qualifying session has been useful to both team and rider to go in depth in some aspects of the suspension on the MotoBI, in particular the set-up that will be investigated further during the warm-up that will be held tonight instead of tomorrow. For the race it will be important to make Alex feel comfortable from the very beginning so that he can find the right feeling to push his MotoBI to the limit. An important role will be played also by the rider’s experience in tyre management, considering the abrasive nature of the Qatar track, which is partly thanks to the sand that blows onto the track. The GP will start tomorrow with the German Stefan Bradl at the pole, followed by the young 125 world champion Marc Marquez and the Swiss rider Thomas Luthi. Gianluca Montiron Alex lowered his time considerably compared to previous sessions, this means we have enjoyed a marked improvement. We arrived in Qatar with not so many kilometers on our bike and we had to exploit the practice sessions to recover the time we lost during winter tests thanks to bad weather conditions. We consider it a positive thing to have the warm-up immediately after qualifying to verify some issues when both the team and the bike are still warmed-up and up to speed following the qualifying session. Today on the track we saw a couple of riders that went very fast, but we all know that the race is the important thing. Alex is an experienced rider and I rely on this for his tactical management of the race as I’m expecting a hard fight. Alex DeAngelis For sure I’m happy because after the tests in Jerez we thought we would be further away from the competition than we were. The team technicians and I did a lot of work to recover our potential as quick as possible. We have found a basic set up that convinces me now that we have to just apply some small improvements to go faster still. Today we will also take part in the warm-up so we will use it more than an extra practice session. According to the new rules, tomorrow I will begin the race from the third row therefore I’ll need to have a good start and try to stay in the front to play it till the end. The appointment for tomorrow’s race is for 8.15 pm local time (GMT +3). More, from a press release issued by Kenny Noyes’ publicist: Kenny Noyes Still Chasing Setup At Qatar The season opener at Qatar sees Kenny Noyes still blowing out the cobwebs after his long preseason layoff. The Avintia-STX rider found himself still working on finding a base setup at Qatar, after a deal to allow the American to ride only came together very late in the preseason, when FOGI Racing and GP Tech pitched in their support with Avintia and the STX team to put him on an FTR, meaning he only got to ride the bike at the final Moto2 test at Jerez. Work on the base setup was made more complicated by a small but stubborn problem, with some vibration in the fast corners restricting Noyes’ corner speed. But his Avintia-STX team have been working closely with FTR to try and track down a solution, and both Kenny and the team are confident of putting up a better fight come race day. Kenny still has some work to do, starting back from the 12th row of the grid in the new three-rider grid format for the Moto2 class. But if the solutions the team have been working on overnight work for the American, then Noyes hopes to be able to fight his way forward as he did last year at Qatar. Kenny Noyes, 34th, Fastest Lap: 2’03.461 Kenny said, “We’re starting off further back than we wanted, but we knew it would be tough coming in with so little preseason testing. Spending all winter not knowing whether we would be racing this year means we got a real late start, and we’re still chasing a solid base setting to start from.” “The new FTR is awesome, it feels real good, and it’s so fast in a straight line. If we didn’t have the vibration problem, we’d be a chunk closer to the front. But FTR and the crew have been fantastic, and have been working their socks off to solve the issue.” “My shoulder is holding up pretty good after the surgery last winter. It’s still only 80%, but I can ride the FTR pretty well as it is. Once I get a base setting on the bike we should be well in the points, but tomorrow, all I can do is push as hard as I can, and learn as much as possible about the bike during the race.”