Both Suzuki riders Alex Rins and Andrea Iannone will start ahead of Yamaha's Valentino Rossi in this afternoon's Japanese GP after they secured two solid places in the top 12.
Rins was the faster of the two with a best time of 1'55.483, which put him 10th on the grid, while teammate Andrea Iannone was close behind in 11th thanks to his best of 1'55.717.
The progress seen on Friday was confirmed on Saturday when both riders were able for the first time to get direct access to Q2 after the third free practice session.
The new aerodynamic fairing helped the riders to achieve a better feeling with the front end and their performance in wet conditions was fast consistently.
In the morning Iannone was the third fastest of the session (1'55.499), giving him 7th place in the combined classification, while Rins ended in 6th thanks to the 1'56.139 that also put him in the 10th place in the combined.
More challenges came in the Q2 session, as the track was in mixed conditions, but not truly wet and they were not able to take advantage of all the lessons learned from the previous sessions.
Despite consistently being at the top of the sheets for the majority of the session, they could not be as effective in the final laps, losing positions and having to settle for 10th and 11th.
The fourth row start may necessitate a so called a recovery race, whereby the riders are forced to look for any opportunity to advance their position in the race, although the feelings of riders and of the team are confident.
โHonestly I was expecting a little more from this qualification after we managed to get the direct access to Q2,โ said Davide Brivio โ Team Manager. โBoth Andrea and Alex have a good feel for the bikes in wet conditions, but then those conditions became complicated because the track was not dry nor wet in the afternoon."
"Eventually some riders did also try the slick tyres, as confirmation that it was incredibly hard to interpret the track conditions. Also the tyre management in a fully wet weekend is not straightforward because of the number of allocated tyres."
"We have to be very judicious in their management. We will start from 10th and 11th, which is not so great, but I believe that if the race is run in fully wet conditions, as it seems it may be, we will have chances for a good result. It may become a fun race.โ
