The steps forward continue for Alex Marquez and Stefan Bradl as the two of them achieve their best starting positions of the season so far.
The constant afternoon conditions at the Red Bull Ring led to steady gains for the Repsol Honda Team on Saturday. Both Alex Marquez and Stefan Bradl were satisfied with their overall pace and the progress in qualifying. Times around the fast Red Bull Ring meant that even the smallest mistakes could cost several positions in the overall standings, as one second regularly divided 19 drivers.
Moto2 World Champion Alex Marquez was keen to get as much information as possible and wasn’t afraid to leave in the wet morning. Alex was the first driver to put pressure on when he started drying the Free Practice 3 session. He moved to the top of the timing screen with just under 15 minutes remaining. Unfortunately, conditions didn’t allow the MotoGP rookie to improve his overall time and he came back in the first quarter, challenging for a top spot from lap one. With a 1’24.490, Alex finished 18th on the grid, his best result so far and within 0.6 seconds of a transfer point.
Stefan Bradl’s weekend has evolved. The German test driver drove half a second faster on Friday than in the first race. Like his rider in the Repsol Honda Team, Bradl was able to achieve improvements in the first quarter and will start the Austrian Motorcycle Grand Prix from the 19th – three places higher and two tenths faster than his 2019 result with the team. Bradl is aiming for a good start and is aiming for points in tomorrow’s race.
Nakagami was again the leading Honda and qualified his LCR team RC213V in tenth place on the grid. This is his second top ten starting position of the year.
The lights for the first of two races at the Red Bull Ring will go out at 2:00 p.m. local time. After a 20-minute warm-up in the morning, both riders on the Repsol Honda Team have the last chance to refine their setup and adapt to changes in the weather before the 28-lap race.