At the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Fabio Di Giannantonio finishes third and claims his second consecutive Sprint podium. Crash for Franco Morbidelli.
The Sprint of the Catalan Grand Prix brings mixed emotions for the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team, celebrating the second consecutive podium on Saturday with Fabio Di Giannantonio, who is third. Misfortune for Franco Morbidelli, who crashed out.
It was a steadily improving day for Di Giannantonio, who made it through Q1 in qualifying to secure a second-row start (1:38.034). Starting from sixth on the grid, Fabio immediately joined the battle for the top positions and crossed the finish line in third. Rider #49 claims his second Sprint podium in a row, his third of the season (after Silverstone and Balaton Park), and now sits sixth in the World Standings with 161 points.
Difficult Sprint for Morbidelli, who crashed with four laps to go. Franco, who had secured direct access to Q2, started from fourth on the grid (1:38.010). A difficult start from the second row forced him to bounce back, but a crash on lap eight ended his race early. The #21 rider is now seventh in the World Standings, with the same amount of points as his teammate (161).
The Catalan GP will end tomorrow with the main race, which will start at 2 p.m. (local time CET).
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO
“The Sprint was tense for the pace, on the bike it was a little more boring, after few laps, everybody was stayed quite the same. So, it was difficult to maintain the focus, and not to make mistake, because today it was easy to make it. I am happy with this podium after yesterday, the team and I worked until late night, and it paid off. We changed few things that were very important for us, and Ducati is working close to the team to find this consistency of feeling. We must keep working in this way also for tomorrow to try to have another podium.”
FRANCO MORBIDELLI
“It was a positive weekend overall until the Sprint. I had a difficult start, we still don’t know what happened, but we’ll analyze deeper to understand. Then I was fighting against other riders to try to come back and have the best race I could. But when I tried to overtake the rider in front of me, I made a mistake, I lost the front, I hit him, and we both crashed. I am sorry for the situation and for his crash, I should have been cleverer. I will have a penalty tomorrow and the race will be difficult; we will try to do the best.”
