Abraham eighth on MotorLand grid

Karel Abraham continues to gain confidence at the MotorLand circuit, having improved time from the morning practice by over a second, and is pleased with his improving performance at Spanish circuit. The MotoGP class rookie will start the race on Sunday from the eighth on the grid, his third top ten qualifying of the season, after clocking a best lap of 1’49.777 which was 1.3 seconds of the pole position time set by Stoner, and just two thousandths behind the highest placing Ducati in the field, the factory machine of Nicky Hayden.

Tomorrow’s challenge of choosing the correct tire for the race remains the Czech rider’s main concern, though he is hopeful that the weather will cooperate and he can continue with his improving form.

Karel Abraham:
“It’s a perfect qualifying position for me, I’m so happy because the last few races were not so good for me, even in the last one at Misano I was still trying to return to the pace, so I hope this race will be good for me again. It won’t be easy, we aren’t even sure what the weather will be like- if it’ll be hot or cold. If it’s the same as today that will be good, but if it’s hot it’ll be very difficult to set up the bike, since we didn’t really have time to set the bike up for hot weather yesterday. It’s also going to be difficult to choose a tire because the hard one is a little slippery and the bike tends to spin too much with it, and the softer compound doesn’t last long enough - we would destroy it in the race. I used the softer compound in qualifying, though it may not be the best choice for the race.”