Baltus qualifies in 14th place in Malaysia, Van den Goorbergh starts from P20
Barry Baltus qualified in 14th place for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Saturday. Zonta van den Goorbergh will start Sunday from 20th on the grid at the Sepang International Circuit where the Dutchman is racing for the first time this weekend.
Fieten Olie Racing GP secured a good starting position for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Saturday at the Sepang International Circuit. The weekend started difficult for the Dutch team with both riders outside the top 20 after the two practice sessions on Friday. Nevertheless, both riders had a good feeling with their Moto2 machines and that was proved on Saturday.
Baltus finished eighth in the third practice session, securing him a place in Q2. Van den Goorbergh unfortunately had to deal with a technical issue which put him in Q1. In that session the Dutchman managed to improve his time impressively but unfortunately it was just not enough for a place in Q2. Baltus also improved his time further in Q2 and eventually secured the fourteenth starting position for the Malaysian Grand Prix, his best qualifying result since the Indian Grand Prix.
Barry Baltus – P14: “Today was a positive day compared to the last few weeks. Yesterday I already had quite a good feeling although the position didn’t show that. This morning I managed to go straight to go Q2 for the first time in a while, it’s very nice to feel good with the bike again. In qualifying I couldn’t do the perfect lap but it wasn’t too bad. Now we focus on tomorrow where it will be important to stay on the bike. It will be a very long and demanding race. I want to thank the team for the work they have done today now we’ll see what we can achieve tomorrow.”
Zonta van den Goorbergh – P20: “We started the day quite well and I was reasonably fast right away. In the second run we went for a time-attack but unfortunately we faced an electronic problem. Fortunately, we managed to fix that before qualifying but we went into that session with very little mileage. The qualifying wasn’t too bad in the end and I was only a few tenths short of a place in Q2. Either way, you do notice that we are a bit short of track time, we need that experience for the race. Even though I managed to squeeze out a good lap, this is not where I want to be. That’s unfortunate but tomorrow is the race and it will be long and tough. It’s expected to be a real race of attrition so who knows, maybe we can still get a good result out of it.”
Jarno Janssen – Fieten Olie Racing GP team manager: “After yesterday we were able to make a big step forward with both riders today. With Zonta we had some electronic problems in the morning, which we also had yesterday. We thought the problem was solved but it came back this morning. Of course something like this never happens at a good moment but especially not on a track that is new. Zonta came back strongly but unfortunately just failed to make it to Q2. Regardless, the 20th place on the grid gives a good starting position for tomorrow.
Barry has made a very big step as he went straight through to Q2 in the morning with an eighth lap time. In Q2 it was still a bit more difficult with the higher asphalt temperature. In the end we have to be satisfied with the fourteenth starting position, also on that side of the box we are confident for tomorrow.”
The 17-lap Moto2 race at the Sepang International Circuit will start Sunday at 13:15 local time, 06:15 Central European time.