Van den Goorbergh and Baltus secure fifth and seventh starting row at Silverstone
Zonta van den Goorbergh qualified in 15th position for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Saturday afternoon while Baltus finished in 19th place in qualifying. After a couple of difficult weekends for RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP, the team seems to have found the way up again.
The tenth Grand Prix weekend of 2024 started on Friday with two practice sessions that Zonta van den Goorbergh and Barry Baltus finished 14th and 24th respectively. Following this, Saturday morning’s final practice session determined which riders could go straight through to Q2. In this session Van den Goorbergh rode to a very impressive second place on the timesheet and thus got through to Q2 while Baltus finished 20th and had to go to Q1.
In Q1, Baltus still came close to a place in Q2 but by posting the fifth time it meant he qualified nineteenth. Van den Goorbergh could not get the maximum out of it in Q2 and qualified fifteenth. With a challenging race at the longest circuit on the Grand Prix calendar, anything is possible for both RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP riders from these starting positions.
Zonta van den Goorbergh – P15: “Overall, today was definitely a good day. With P2 in the morning session, we showed that we can be very fast. In qualifying I didn’t manage to string all the sectors together, I’m very fast in sectors 1 and 3 but in 2 and 4 I’m lacking. I’ll have to work on that myself but with fifteenth place on the grid it’s obviously not a disaster yet. Now we have to see if we can make up a few positions in the race tomorrow, I’m looking forward to it.”
Barry Baltus – P19: “It was not the best day but it was not the worst day either. We were close to go to Q2 so we’ll have to see what we can do tomorrow, starting from 19th place. It’s still quite far down on the grid but at least it’s better than our position in the last two races. We’ll take the positives from this and continue working. It will be a long race and very important to manage the tyres well. Let’s see what is possible.”
Jarno Janssen – RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP team manager: “Today was a day with a reasonable outcome. Because Zonta was classified second in the morning session, of course you hope for something more but we have to remain realistic and in qualifying that lap was not there. There are always many factors that play a role in that but going straight to Q2 and a fifteenth place on the grid gives a good starting position for tomorrow, especially as he can be very fast.
Barry recovered a bit in qualifying this afternoon but unfortunately just couldn’t get to Q2 which puts him nineteenth on the grid. For him too, tomorrow is a race with possibilities so let’s hope the weather conditions remain stable, they get through the first lap well and then they can have a strong race.”
The 17-lap Moto2 race at Silverstone will not start until 2:30pm local time, 3:30pm Dutch time, on Sunday afternoon due to a revised schedule.