In a season which is not easy for him at each Grand Prix, Karel Abraham experiences more favorable moments, such as second place in qualifying in Argentina, when he found himself on the first row of the starting grid alongside by Marc Marquez. He also has some good races to his credit this year, such as seventh place at Assen ahead of official Honda, Ducati, Suzuki, Aprilia and KTM.
This Friday in Malaysia will be one of the good moments of the season, with a good seventh place obtained in front of calibers like Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi et Dani Pedrosa, this on the dry. Of course, it wasn't about boulevards (9 hundredths ahead of Pedrosa and 11 over Lorenzo) but there was every reason to be satisfied with a two-year-old Ducati.
The wet afternoon was barely less favorable, with the thirteenth fastest time ahead of Cal Crutchlow, Scott Redding, the two KTMs and again Dani Pedrosa.
The very positive side of this Friday time for Karel is that if it rains on Saturday morning, he will automatically qualify for Q2 thanks to his seventh time.
According to Karel Abraham, who are " I think it was another good day today. In FP1 we managed to be just 0,5 seconds off my best lap here, which is pretty good because when we started the track was wet. »
“It dried out and we were able to get into the top ten, so I'm really happy with that. Right now we are in the position to qualify for Q2 so we will wait and see what the weather looks like on Saturday morning. »
“This afternoon it was raining heavily and I was happy to finish thirteenth. That's great for me because we had some big issues to fix, but we didn't, so if we can find a way around them tomorrow, there's a lot of room for improvement. »
“The Ducati seems to be stronger here than in Australia so now we have to wait and see what the conditions are like for the rest of the weekend. »
Results of the first day:
1 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA Ducati Team Ducati 326.0 2'00.671
2 19 Alvaro BAUTISTA SPA Pull&Bear Aspar Team Ducati 326.2 2'00.742 0.071 / 0.071
3 5 Johann ZARCO FRA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 320.8 2'00.807 0.136 / 0.065
4 25 Maverick VIÑALES SPA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 321.0 2'00.903 0.232 / 0.096
5 93 Marc MARQUEZ SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 322.0 2'00.950 0.279 / 0.047
6 35 Cal CRUTCHLOW GBR LCR Honda Honda 310.6 2'01.060 0.389 / 0.110
7 17 Karel ABRAHAM CZE Pull&Bear Aspar Team Ducati 315.8 2'01.077 0.406 / 0.017
8 8 Hector BARBERA SPA Reale Avintia Racing Ducati 313.4 2'01.147 0.476 / 0.070
9 26 Dani PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 318.1 2'01.162 0.491 / 0.015
10 99 Jorge LORENZO SPA Ducati Team Ducati 318.7 2'01.189 0.518 / 0.027
11 9 Danilo PETRUCCI ITA OCTO Pramac Racing Ducati 328.4 2'01.560 0.889 / 0.371
12 46 Valentino ROSSI ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 318.1 2'01.662 0.991 / 0.102
13 29 Andrea IANNONE ITA Team SUZUKI ECSTAR Suzuki 317.9 2'01.740 1.069 / 0.078
14 43 Jack MILLER AUS EG 0,0 Marc VDS Honda 320.2 2'01.803 1.132 / 0.063
15 44 Pol ESPARGARO SPA Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 317.5 2'01.831 1.160 / 0.028
16 76 Loris BAZ FRA Reale Avintia Racing Ducati 315.4 2'02.416 1.745 / 0.585
17 38 Bradley SMITH GBR Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 308.5 2'02.469 1.798 / 0.053
18 45 Scott REDDING GBR OCTO Pramac Racing Ducati 317.9 2'03.056 2.385 / 0.587
19 60 Michael VAN DER MARK NED Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 314.6 2'03.473 2.802 / 0.417
20 53 Tito RABAT SPA EG 0,0 Marc VDS Honda 305.1 2'03.531 2.860 / 0.058
21 22 Sam LOWES GBR Aprilia Racing Team Gresini Aprilia 309.2 2'03.534 2.863 / 0.003
22 42 Alex RINS SPA Team SUZUKI ECSTAR Suzuki 313.2 2'04.381 3.710 / 0.847
Provisional ranking of the World Championship:
1 MARQUEZ Marc SPA 269 points
2 DOVIZIOSO Andrea ITA 236
3 VIÑALES Maverick SPA 219
4 ROSSI Valentino ITA 188
5 PEDROSA Dani SPA 174
6 ZARCO Johann FRA 138
7 LORENZO Jorge SPA 117
8 PETRUCCI Danilo ITA 111
9 CRUTCHLOW Cal GBR 103
10 FOLGER Jonas GER 84
11 BAUTISTA Alvaro SPA 70
12 MILLER Jack AUS 65
13 ESPARGARO Aleix SPA 62
14 REDDING Scott GBR 61
15 IANNONE Andrea ITA 60
16 ESPARGARO Pol SPA 49
17 RINS Alex SPA 46
18 BAZ Loris FRA 45
19 ABRAHAM Karel CZE 30
20 RABAT Tito SPA 29
21 BARBERA Hector SPA 25
22 SMITH Bradley GBR 20
23 PIRRO Michele ITA 18
24 KALLIO Mika END 11
25 LOWES Sam GBR 5
26 NAKASUGA Katsuyuki JPN 4
27 GUINTOLI Sylvain FRA 1
28 TSUDA Takuya JPN 0
Classification by manufacturers:
1 HONDA 319 points
2 YAMAHA 285
3 DUCATI 278
4 SUZUKI 87
5 APRILIA 64
6 KTM 58
Team ranking:
1 REPSOL HONDA TEAM 443 points
2 MOVISTAR YAMAHA MOTOGP 407
3 DUCATI TEAM 353
4 MONSTER YAMAHA TECH 3 222
5 OCTO PRAMAC RACING 172
6 TEAM SUZUKI ECSTAR 107
7 LCR HONDA 103
8 PULL&BEAR ASPAR TEAM 100
9 EG 0,0 MARC VDS 94
10 REALE AVINTIA RACING 70
11 RED BULL KTM FACTORY RACING 69
12 APRILIA RACING TEAM GRESINI 67
Photo © Pull&Bear Aspar Team
