YONNY HERNÁNDEZ WILL START IN THE FOURTH ROW AT THE GRAND PRIX OF GERMANY AND MASHEL AL NAIMI IN THE TENTH. IN 125CC TITO RABAT HAS SEEN HOW THE EIGHTH PLACE FLEW AWAY FOR JUST A LITTLE BIT, SO HE WILL START NINTH
Sachsenring, 17th July 2010. Yonny Hernández has made his third best result of the year in the qualifying practice of the German Grand Prix, eighth round of the MotoGP World Championship. He has finished 14th in the circuit of Sachsenring while his team mate Mashel Al Naimi has classified 40th, like he did in Assen and Montmeló. The Colombian rider did the 10th best time in the morning, but could not equal this result in the afternoon, so he is going to start tomorrow in the fourth row for the first time this season. His goal is to do a good start, fight for the top ten and do his best race of the year, which would help him go upper in the championship standing and would let the team Blusens-STX improve his position too (it is tenth now).
The Qatari rider made the 32nd best time yesterday and 34th in the free practice of today. However, in the qualifying practice he has not been able to keep this excellent level and he has finished in the tenth row. He will start with the aim of finishing the race once again and gain more and more experience in order to get more used to this new category and forget the habits he acquired when doing endurance motorcycling.
On the other hand, Tito Rabat has lost the eighth position in the last minute, when Johann Zarco has passed him for just 0,006, so he will be starting tomorrow from the third row in the ninth place. The Blusens-STX rider was third in the morning practice on wet and seventh on Friday. With this tenth place for the race he has improved his classification of past years in the Grand Prix of Germany, but he will not be in second row for the first time in four GGPP. The rider from Alella (Barcelona) is over two seconds away from the amazing pole Marc Márquez has done (Marc has improved in almost eight decimals the previous record of the circuit), but he is only seven decimals away from the third. Therefore, his goal is to start well and stick with the first group and battle for podium, which would put him a little ahead in the world championship ranking.
68 YONNY HERNÁNDEZ (14º. 1’26.156, +1.174): “Yesterday I crashed pretty hard and my knee and ankle hurt a little today; fortunately, it does not hurt too much. I am satisfied with the work the team and I have done today, because we found the right setting very fast. In the morning we were in the top ten, which is great, but in the qualifyings I found it harder to speed up. Luckily, I finished 14th. I am very motivated with the race and looking forward to fighting to be in the top ten and have my best result of the year here tomorrow. I like the track a lot and could adapt to its peculiarities quite easily. I have been competitive and I hope we can confirm this impressions on Sunday by doing a beautiful race.”
95 MASHEL AL NAIMI (40º. 1’28.146., +3.164): “This morning I was faster and improved my time of yesterday, but in the afternoon I could not have the same rhythm. I was five decimals slower than in the free practice and I a second and four decimals further to pole. I did my best time in lap 12 out of 23, after that I was a little unfocused. At first, I felt strange in this circuit, but after the qualifyings I already felt better. Tomorrow my aim is to finish the race; I must be really careful because the circuit is short and starting in the back is a handicap. There might be an accident in the first bend and we have to pay attention to avoid any problems that may come”.
12 TITO RABAT (9º. 1’28.075, +2.022): “The qualifying session was a bit worse than I expected, because the weekend so far was perfect. Yesterday we did fantastic work and this morning as well. We were one of the best four on wet. However, in the afternoon the rear wheel was slippery in the left bends, which are majority in this circuit, and this has affected my times. We need to solve this problem before tomorrow’s race if we want to have options of fighting for a podium place. I believe we can afford a good result, because the two best riders are a little far, but Smith (who is third) is only 7 decimals ahead, so if we fix the problem in the rear tyre we could catch him. It is fundamental to start well, but we also have to realize that after crashing in Assen and Montmeló we must finish the race. Furthermore, in the last two years I could not finish this circuit’s race, so I really want to break this pattern.”
