Diogo Moreira secures Q2 spot on Friday at Balaton Park
Balaton Park CircuitPro Honda LCR rider Diogo Moreira finished 8th on Friday at the Balaton Park Circuit
Pro Honda LCR rider Diogo Moreira once again delivered a strong Friday performance on Hungarian soil, with both sessions marking his first experience at Balaton Park aboard a MotoGP bike. The Brazilian showed promising pace in the morning session and continued this in the afternoon, finishing the day as the eighth fastest rider and securing his place in Q2 tomorrow.
A complicated first day at the Hungarian GP saw Luca Marini take eighth in the morning before improving his best lap time by almost half a second in the afternoon to a 1’37.949. Despite the improvements, the Italian would find himself outside of the top ten by less than two tenths of a second as half a second split nine riders between tenth and 19th place. Adjusting his Honda RC213V for the Q1 battle will be his and the Honda HRC Castrol squad’s overnight objective, Marini sure to be in the mix alongside his teammate.
Joan Mir’s Friday saw the #36 struggle to find the correct feeling with his Honda RC213V as his team experimented with setup options. The close gaps which have become standard in the modern MotoGP era meant that the 2020 World Champion’s situation seemed more dramatic than reality. A best lap of 1’38.024 was less than three tenths from the top ten and barely a tenth of his teammate’s time. With Friday hopefully absorbing all of the bad luck, Mir remains hopeful that Saturday still holds positives.
Cal Crutchlow continues to deputise for the injured Johann Zarco at Castrol Honda LCR and enjoyed his first sessions at the Balaton Park circuit, a new circuit for him. The British rider completed a solid Friday, improving session after session, and finished the day in 22nd place.
Today, I managed to adapt and enjoy the riding, so I’m happy with the job we’ve done. It’s difficult to understand the track because there’s only one line, which makes it hard to improve your lap time. With a MotoGP bike, you need to avoid mistakes because it’s a small circuit. Securing a place in Q2 is a positive result and will help us a lot going into tomorrow. We’ll see what we can do.
Today, I managed to adapt and enjoy the riding, so I’m happy with the job we’ve done. It’s difficult to understand the track because there’s only one line, which makes it hard to improve your lap time. With a MotoGP bike, you need to avoid mistakes because it’s a small circuit. Securing a place in Q2 is a positive result and will help us a lot going into tomorrow. We’ll see what we can do.
We arrived with positive intentions and desires, but we encountered the same situation as in the previous races: we can’t take advantage of the soft tyre and the time attack like the others. We achieved our maximum today and all we can do is focus on making some changes for tomorrow morning and try to get out of Q1. We are really close so I hope we can make that very last step that we need overnight.
We arrived with positive intentions and desires, but we encountered the same situation as in the previous races: we can’t take advantage of the soft tyre and the time attack like the others. We achieved our maximum today and all we can do is focus on making some changes for tomorrow morning and try to get out of Q1. We are really close so I hope we can make that very last step that we need overnight.
Quite unexpected what happened today because we really had a lot of struggles to get the front working in the correct way. Things just didn’t quite go correctly today and there were many small things which didn’t go our way. I hope this means we have gotten all of our bad luck out of the way and we can have some good luck tomorrow. Our position probably looks much worse than it is because the gaps where we are in the time sheets are very close. Saturday is always full of surprises.
Quite unexpected what happened today because we really had a lot of struggles to get the front working in the correct way. Things just didn’t quite go correctly today and there were many small things which didn’t go our way. I hope this means we have gotten all of our bad luck out of the way and we can have some good luck tomorrow. Our position probably looks much worse than it is because the gaps where we are in the time sheets are very close. Saturday is always full of surprises.
I feel better on the bike this week than last week. I was able to ride normal laps. We had a couple of new tyres at the end and we improved. This is a new circuit for me, and we are happy with the progress. Our goal is to keep going like this: enjoying and improving. There is no pressure or expectations, just doing our best and seeing what we can do. I’m having a good time!
I feel better on the bike this week than last week. I was able to ride normal laps. We had a couple of new tyres at the end and we improved. This is a new circuit for me, and we are happy with the progress. Our goal is to keep going like this: enjoying and improving. There is no pressure or expectations, just doing our best and seeing what we can do. I’m having a good time!
