FIM Moto2 World Championship Le Mans, France May 19, 2012 Qualifying Results (wet conditions, all using Honda engines and Dunlop tires): 1. Marc MARQUEZ, Spain (SUTER), 1:37.710 2. Thomas LUTHI, Switzerland (SUTER), 1:37.739 3. Pol ESPARGARO, Spain (KALEX), 1:38.190 4. Scott REDDING, UK (KALEX), 1:38.369 5. Andrea IANNONE, Italy (SPEED UP), 1:38.399 6. Mika KALLIO, Finland (KALEX), 1:38.574 7. Alex DE ANGELIS, San Marino (SUTER), 1:38.662 8. Johann ZARCO, France (MOTOBI), 1:38.752 9. Claudio CORTI, Italy (KALEX), 1:38.795 10. Toni ELIAS, Spain (SUTER), 1:38.826 11. Julian SIMON, Spain (SUTER), 1:38.827 12. Dominique AEGERTER, Switzerland (SUTER), 1:38.863 13. Randy KRUMMENACHER, Switzerland (KALEX), 1:38.880 14. Simone CORSI, Italy (FTR), 1:38.961 15. Ricard CARDUS, Spain (AJR), 1:39.061 16. Axel PONS, Spain (KALEX), 1:39.105 17. Nicolas TEROL, Spain (SUTER), 1:39.229 18. Esteve RABAT, Spain (KALEX), 1:39.258 19. Bradley SMITH, UK (TECH 3), 1:39.301 20. Yuki TAKAHASHI, Japan (SUTER), 1:39.315 21. Xavier SIMEON, Belgium (TECH 3), 1:39.353 22. Roberto ROLFO, Italy (SUTER), 1:39.414 23. Mike DI MEGLIO, France (SPEED UP), 1:39.520 24. Gino REA, UK (SUTER), 1:39.796 25. Takaaki NAKAGAMI, Japan (KALEX), 1:39.797 26. Alexander LUNDH, Sweden (MZ-RE HONDA), 1:39.924 27. Max NEUKIRCHNER, Germany (KALEX), 1:40.120 28. Anthony WEST, Australia (MORIWAKI), 1:40.573 29. Ratthapark WILAIROT, Thailand (SUTER), 1:40.784 30. Angel RODRIGUEZ, Spain (BIMOTA), 1:41.443 31. Elena ROSELL, Spain (MORIWAKI), 1:41.634 32. Marco COLANDREA, Switzerland (FTR), 1:42.182 More, from a press release issued by Speed Master: GREAT QUALIFYING SESSION FOR ANDREA IANNONE, DI MEGLIO LAGGING BEHIND For the Monster Energy Grand Prix de France, the qualifying session to define the starting grid for the Moto2 class was held today. During the free practice of the morning, Andrea Iannone was among the fastest riders out on track, improving his time lap after lap and working on the pace with a view to the race. In the afternoon, the Italian proved his determination on the track: Andrea worked to confirm a consistent rhythm and ended the session with an outstanding fifth time, which gives him a spot within the second row for tomorrow. Mike di Meglio didn’t have the chance to take advantage of most of the morning because of a crash, staying out of sight in the last free practice session. Also the qualifying session was complicated for the Frenchman, who has to start from the eighth row on the grid tomorrow. Andrea Iannone #29 – 5th with 1’38.399 “Today things went quite well. As usual we tried some modifications to the Speed Up machine, which, in this case, helped us to improve a little and to be faster. As a whole, it all went well, we put together some useful data and we took as much advantage as possible of the time at disposal. Tomorrow’s race is going to be difficult, in particular with this changeable weather. We’ll see what the situation is like and may the best man win!” Mike di Meglio #63 – 23th with 1’39.520 “I’m sorry for how today went. In the qualifying practice we started off with a normal base, I didn’t have much rear grip and I crashed out. The track was colder than in the previous sessions. When I went out again, on the last run, we tried a choice that gave us more grip, but with the rain I couldn’t improve my lap time. I’m starting from a rear position and I’m sorry about that, this is my home Grand Prix and it meant a lot to be in the front. Tomorrow, in case it rains, it’ll be a long race. The important thing will be to have a decent start and get a good feeling with the bike.” More, from a press release issued by Blusens Avinitia Racing: Julián Simón finishes eleventh and will be on the fourth row of tomorrow´s starting grid Le Mans, 19 May 2012. Today´s climatology has not helped Julián Simón make his plans come true. Today the Avintia Blusens Moto2 rider had a tight work schedule in order to properly set his new bike up but the rain during the qualifying practice has upset his plans and he did not manage to be as competitive as he wanted to. In spite of it all his pace is quite good and he has good chances to do a good race tomorrow. Making a good start will be fundamental to reach the Top ten again event though the Avintia Blusens rider aspires to finish in the Top five. 60 Julián Simón (11º 1.38.827 +1.117): “I am happy with the job we have done so far this weekend on the setting-up of the bike. We have tried many different options and things are getting more and more under control. This class is difficult and everything has to be flawless if one wants to be successful. I am confident I can do a good race though. I need to make a good start and stick to the lead pack. If it rains the race is going to be long and hard-fought but I hope I will be able to take advantage of my experience and be very competitive.” More, from a press release issued by Marc VDS Racing Team: Le Mans, France – 19 May 2012: The Marc VDS Racing Team will start tomorrow’s French Moto2 round at Le Mans confident of mounting a double podium challenge after Scott Redding and Mika Kallio qualified inside the top six this afternoon. British rider Redding heads the second row of the grid in fourth position after he posted a best time of 1.38.369, which saw him denied a second consecutive front row start by just 0.179s. The 19-year-old excelled in practice to finish second fastest overall and he was confident he could have pushed for the front row only for late rain and a small crash to thwart his bid. This afternoon’s session was building up to a typically exciting climax when rain that had affected the earlier MotoGP and Moto3 sessions began to fall with just five minutes left on the clock. Small spots of rain were falling at almost every corner and pushing to try and improve his pace, Redding ran off track in the final two minutes and despite a valiant attempt to keep control of his Kalex machine he toppled over in the gravel trap. Kallio is also optimistic he will be challenging at the front in tomorrow’s 26-lap race having joined Redding on the second row in sixth position. He set a best time of 1.38.574 to finish just over 0.2s behind Redding, but it could have been a better outcome had the Finnish rider not been called upon to produce a heroic save at the final corner on his last flying lap. He had set personal best splits in the first three sectors of the historic Bugatti circuit, but lost the front-end at the final corner, Kallio expertly keeping his Kalex machine upright. Scott Redding #45: 4th Position – 1’38.369 “It was a decent session and I can’t complain to be fourth on the grid but the rain spots right at the end probably cost me a front row. I’ve been fast and competitive and inside the top three all weekend, so it would have been nice to be on the front row. It was hard to judge where the grip was at the end and to be honest I should have cracked on a bit earlier. It took me a bit too long to get into a rhythm but I’m not a million miles away, so I’m confident I will be battling at the front in the race tomorrow. The crash at the end was a shame but I just couldn’t keep it on two wheels in the gravel. I’d rather that happen today though than in the race!” Mika Kallio #36: 6th Position – 1’38.574 “Starting from the second row always give you a good chance to go away with the leading group in the race, so I am happy about that. The goal is always to be higher but my pace has been consistent and fast, though the gap to the top two is bigger than I would have liked. It was strange because when I got to my best lap time I felt very comfortable and felt I had some margin to improve. But when I started to push to improve it felt like something was holding me back and I’m not sure what was causing this feeling. I’m disappointed about that but we will check the data tonight to see if we can understand more. I might have been a bit higher up though because the lap before the rain spots started to fall, I was faster in the first three sectors and in the last corner I lost the front. I was really close to crashing and without that maybe I would have been fourth instead of Scott. But I’m confident for the race and sure I will be fighting for the podium.” Michael Bartholemy: Team Principal “When we look at how Scott has been so fast and competitive throughout practice yesterday and this morning, we were pretty confident that he would be starting the race from the front row. The conditions were a little bit tricky and that didn’t make it easy but the good thing is Scott was still fast and consistent and able to qualify just off the front row. It is a good starting position to make a good race and the important thing is that he has demonstrated all weekend that he has the pace. Mika has also been challenging inside the top six all weekend too, so we are really looking forward to seeing both our riders battling for the podium tomorrow. That would be a perfect situation to reward the support of our loyal and valued sponsor Elf in the French Grand Prix.” More, from a press release issued by QMMF Racing Team: West keeps trying different set-up combinations Rosell happy with progress Team QMMF rider Anthony West continued working through different set-up combinations on the second day of practice for the French Grand Prix, but still didn’t have the desired break-through that would enable him to challenge the top contenders of the Moto2 category. Whereas the Australian ended qualifying in 28th position and was “quite confused” after testing so many different things, team-mate Elena Rosell improved steadily and was happy with her progress despite her 31st position on the starting grid for the race on Sunday. Anthony West 28th in 1.40,573 “My bike today was a mix of our set-up at Estoril and the bike we had yesterday morning. It was like having another completely new bike again. On the first laps, I wanted to push hard because it looked as if it was going to rain, but I had a big problem with the grip and the bike behaved quite differently to what it had done in the other sessions. It was confusing because I have been riding a completely different bikes from one session to the next. Right now I feel lost. We have done a complete circle to come back to the same problems that we had with the old bike. The only difference is the feeling. The new frame is softer, so it feels nicer and not so aggressive. But the problem with turning and corner speed is still there. And the bike is still very difficult to set-up. You make the smallest change and it becomes almost unrideable. It’s a bit frustrating because it seems as if we are wasting races. But we need to try and test things so Moriwaki have the right input for the next development step!” Elena Rosell 31st in 1.41,634 “We are improving. This morning, we went faster than yesterday and in qualifying we went faster than this morning. We are still far from where we want to be, but step by step, we are making progress. I am less than four seconds away from the top and only one and a half second behind Anthony, who obviously is my reference in this class. We keep working at reducing this gap and together with Moriwaki, we keep working on improvements to the bike, mainly to make it safer and more predictable to ride. If you get more feeling for a bike, you can enter the turns with more confidence and you can also open the throttle harder on the corner exits. Now we have to wait and see what the weather will be like tomorrow. Qualifying practice was a bit crazy because everybody was in a rush to put a quick lap in. But then, after a small drizzle, everybody just waited around. It was strange!” More, from a press release issued by Mapfre Aspar Team: MAPFRE ASPAR TEAM EXPECTING TOUGH RACE AT LE MANS Elias and Terol to start from fourth and sixth rows respectively Toni Elias contests his 200th Grand Prix at Le Mans tomorrow and the aim for the MAPFRE ASPAR rider is to celebrate it with a good result come what may. However, with weather forecasts predicting more rain after a lunchtime shower today and a torrential downpour later in the afternoon it promises to be a lottery of a race, with the veteran Spaniard hoping to make the most of his experience from tenth on the grid with his young team-mate Nico Terol seven places behind him. 10th Toni Elias (1.38.826, 19 laps): “I’m not where I want to be and we are struggling to get there. There is nothing we can do but keep working hard. I am starting from the fourth row so I’ll need to get away well if I want to run with the leaders. The main thing now though is to solve the problems we are having and if we can do that we’ll be at the front. If it rains here you’re a hero if you can stay on two wheels so hopefully we can have a dry race and continue with our development programme.” 17th Nico Terol (1.39.229, 25 laps): “I am happy that we are finding the right way forward in this extremely difficult category. This morning I was happy with my pace, having lapped sixth fastest, but this afternoon was a stop-start session and I am four tenths of a top twelve position, which is what I was hoping for. But I am satisfied and we have to keep going like this. If I can get a good start and get into my rhythm quickly I can have a good race and if it rains it will be particularly important to ride smoothly and not make mistaes. I want to score points and finish as high as possible to take that next step.” More, from a press release issued by JiR Moto2 Team: Positive qualifying sees Zarco in eighth place in his home Grand Prix Today saw Team JiR rider Johann Zarco make a strong qualifying performance on his MotoBI machine so he will start the French Grand Prix from eighth place on the grid. Weather did affect the proceedings a little, so it was important for Johann to secure a good time early on, in case the rain would fall heavier during the qualifying session. The 21-year-old found he could relax a little more on his MotoBI machine and get into a good rhythm around the 2.6-mile Le Mans circuit. He will now discuss potential set-up changes with the JiR team before tomorrow’s race. Starting from pole position tomorrow only one second faster than Johann will be the Spaniard Marc Marquez who kept first place despite a crash with 25 minutes of the session still to go. Johann Zarco Final position: 8th Best lap: 1m 38.752s I’m quite happy with that, eighth is good and it is important for tomorrow. If we see how things have gone from free practice since yesterday I was always around 15th position and things weren’t coming easy for me. I was not so relaxed on my MotoBI, but this morning I was really calm and I finally started to treat this weekend as just another race, rather than the French Grand Prix. My trainer and manager, Laurent Fellon was out watching me on track and in today’s practice session he could see the bike was moving around a lot which wasn’t my fault. From this and information from our telemetry we made some changes to the settings to my MotoBI for qualifying which helped. When the qualifying session began I knew it was important to make a good time quickly, as it was raining a little. I managed to improve to seventh position but finished the session in eighth. Now we need to sit down and think about to improve still further for tomorrow’s race whatever the weather. More, from a press release issued by Tech 3: Difficult qualifying for Tech 3 Racing at Le Mans The Tech 3 Racing Team experienced a difficult qualifying session at the Le Mans circuit this afternoon, with Bradley Smith finishing 19th quickest and Xavier Simeon ruled out of tomorrow’s race through injury. Smith will start his landmark 100th Grand Prix from the front of the seventh row of the grid after the Moto2 field served up another closely contested qualifying session at a cool and cloudy Le Mans track. Smith clocked a best time of 1.39.301, which left him less than 0.5s away from the third row, but as he was poised to try and improve his lap time in the final five minutes, rain spots started to fall on the legendary Bugatti circuit to deny the 21-year-old. Xavier Simeon will not start the 26-lap race after he suffered fractures to his left hand and foot in a heavy crash on his 12th lap. Simeon has been transferred to a Le Mans hospital where he will undergo further assessment after also suffering a heavy blow his to pelvis. Bradley Smith 19th 139.301 21 laps: “Starting from 19th place on the grid is not where I anticipated being for my 100th Grand Prix. Obviously it is a special weekend reaching that milestone and this being the Tech 3 Racing Team’s home race, but it was another frustrating qualifying session. I had quite good pace this morning and then we made some changes to the Mistral 610 machine and unfortunately we didn’t make it better. The weather didn’t help when it started to rain at the end and to be honest I won’t be too sorry if it is a wet race. If it rains then we have a chance of being able to fight through the pack, but in the dry it will definitely be a tough race. We’ll analyse where it wrong today and be ready to come out fighting tomorrow. I also want to wish Xavier a quick recovery and hope to see him back on the other side of the Tech 3 Racing garage soon.” More, from a press release issued by Team Federal Oil Gresini Moto2: REA STRUGGLES TO MAKE PROGRESS ON THE SUTER Unfortunately the change of chassis from Moriwaki to Suter has yet to reap any major rewards for Gino Rea, who struggled today to make significant progress up the Moto2 order in France. However, it was another important opportunity to gather data that will be useful for the race tomorrow. Gino Rea. (24th 1′ 39″ 796) “The position is still not where we want to be but we’re improving the bike. I didn’t manage to get an ideal lap in today because we used the new tyre at the start of the session and by the time we wanted to really push it was already worn. It’s good that we’ve closed the gap to the leaders but it’s a shame to start from so far back. Hopefully we can make a good start in the race and make up some more positions.” Fausto Gresini “We knew this Grand Prix would be like a test for us and it has proved to be the case. It is not always easy to switch to a new bike and today was a case of working to find a set-up that allows Gino to contest a positive race.” More, from a press release issued by Team Thai Honda Gresini Moto2: WILAIROT STRUGGLES TO MAKE PROGRESS ON THE SUTER Unfortunately the change of chassis from Moriwaki to Suter has yet to reap any major rewards for Ratthapark Wilairot, who struggled today to make significant progress up the Moto2 order in France. However, it was another important opportunity to gather data that will be useful for the race tomorrow. Ratthapark Wilairot. (29th 1′ 40.784) “Unfortunately the position hasn’t changed much although I can say that I felt better on the bike before the rain came. Now we need to work on the bike because I have a lot of problems in corner entry. Rear traction is perfect but I have some issues with the bike moving around when I try to tip it into the turn so this is the main area that needs working on. Tomorrow I will just have to get a good start and try my best to finish in the points.” Fausto Gresini “We knew this Grand Prix would be like a test for us and it has proved to be the case. It is not always easy to switch to a new bike and today was a case of working to find a set-up that allows Feem to contest a positive race.”