Unfortunately for the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team, history seems to repeat itself, and, like last year, the two official M1s suffer from the high temperatures in Andalusia, even if, once again, Johann Zarco and his team manage to better get out of it only the blue ones.
The weekend is not over but Jerez, who announced himself as a justice of the peace, is starting to take on the appearance of a ruthless magistrate.
Valentino Rossi, who will start from the 4th row, just like his teammate, attributes his difficulties to a poor track-tyre-electronics agreement and is not optimistic for the race. And when asked why Johann Zarco apparently does better than the official drivers, the Doctor puts it down to his physical measurements.
Valentino Rossi, 10th at 0,614s: “Today wasn't a great day either, the feeling was similar to Friday. In FP3, with cooler temperatures, we were stronger, and the pace was better. It wasn't fantastic, but we were closer to the lead. But in the afternoon, when it got hotter, I suffered a lot, everything became more difficult, the deficit became greater. I only lost 0,6 seconds compared to the best time, but I'm far behind. The race will therefore be tiring, because my running pace leaves a lot to be desired, especially with high temperatures. We need to think of something for tomorrow. We tried a lot, but today we found nothing that could have helped us move forward. Even the hard tires didn't help us.
Saturday morning we lost acceleration, but we couldn't get out of the corners fast enough. I don't know if this can be solved mechanically, I think it's more electronics. It seems that the adversaries have made more progress than us in this area. With the heat, it seemed like our tires were too soft for these conditions, both rear and front. But especially the rear tire, it was good in the morning, but in the afternoon I was skating terribly with it. I tried the hard tire, but with it we lose too much grip. For the moment, we do not have answers to our questions.”
This morning, Rossi followed and was able to observe John Zarco...
“It looks like he uses the rear tire less, yes. But he is also smaller and lighter than me. Each driver has a different driving style, which is always interesting to watch. But that doesn't help: I wasn't able to improve in the afternoon and do a good qualification. Do I think I could do better on Sunday? We will try, but it will be difficult, we need to improve the settings. Tomorrow it will be as hot as today. If it's over 40 degrees, we will suffer. We have nine drivers in front of us, all fast. We will have to fight hard, but we may not have a wonderful position.”
Jerez MotoGP J.2: Chronos
| 1 | 35 | Cal Crutchlow | Honda | 1'37.653 | |||
| 2 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | Honda | 1'37.912 | 0.259 | 0.259 | |
| 3 | 5 | johann zarco | Yamaha | 1'37.956 | 0.303 | 0.044 | |
| 4 | 99 | Jorge Lorenzo | Ducati | 1'37.969 | 0.316 | 0.013 | |
| 5 | 93 | Marc Márquez | Honda | 1'37.977 | 0.324 | 0.008 | |
| 6 | 42 | Alex Rins | Suzuki | 1'37.984 | 0.331 | 0.007 | |
| 7 | 29 | Andrea Iannone | Suzuki | 1'37.987 | 0.334 | 0.003 | |
| 8 | 4 | Andrea Dovizioso | Ducati | 1'38.029 | 0.376 | 0.042 | |
| 9 | 9 | Danilo PETRUCCI | Ducati | 1'38.086 | 0.433 | 0.057 | |
| 10 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | Yamaha | 1'38.267 | 0.614 | 0.181 | |
| 11 | 25 | Maverick VIÑALES | Yamaha | 1'38.281 | 0.628 | 0.014 | |
| 12 | 43 | Jack Miller | Ducati | 1'38.522 | 0.869 | 0.241 | |
| Q1 Results: | |||||||
| Q2 | 4 | Andrea Dovizioso | Ducati | 1'38.074 | |||
| Q2 | 25 | Maverick VIÑALES | Yamaha | 1'38.349 | 0.275 | 0.275 | |
| 13 | 41 | Aleix Espargaro | Aprilia | 1'38.389 | 0.315 | 0.040 | |
| 14 | 30 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | Honda | 1'38.481 | 0.407 | 0.092 | |
| 15 | 21 | Frank MORBIDELLI | Honda | 1'38.544 | 0.470 | 0.063 | |
| 16 | 44 | Pol Espargaró | KTM | 1'38.598 | 0.524 | 0.054 | |
| 17 | 53 | Tito RABAT | Ducati | 1'38.610 | 0.536 | 0.012 | |
| 18 | 12 | Thomas LUTHI | Honda | 1'38.752 | 0.678 | 0.142 | |
| 19 | 36 | Mika Kallio | KTM | 1'38.759 | 0.685 | 0.007 | |
| 20 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | Ducati | 1'38.838 | 0.764 | 0.079 | |
| 21 | 38 | Bradley SMITH | KTM | 1'38.961 | 0.887 | 0.123 | |
| 22 | 55 | Hafiz Syahrin | Yamaha | 1'39.135 | 1.061 | 0.174 | |
| 23 | 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | Ducati | 1'39.146 | 1.072 | 0.011 | |
| 24 | 10 | Xavier SIMEON | Ducati | 1'39.708 | 1.634 | 0.562 | |
| 25 | 45 | Scott REDDING | Aprilia | 1'39.918 | 1.844 | 0.210 |
