Saturday at the Gran Premi Monster Energy de Catalunya saw the grid decided for Sunday’s 23 lap Moto2™ World Championship race. After the tragedy that took place on Friday, the track was changed and an extended Free Practice 3 session took place. Johann Zarco (Ajo Motorsport) was immediately on the pace, missing out on the top spot in FP3 by only 0.022s. He only got faster in Qualifying, improving his time by half a second to take his first pole position of the 2016 season with a 1’49.179. This is the second time Zarco has taken pole at the Catalan GP, starting the 2015 edition from pole and going on to take victory, just his second in the class back then. Now Zarco hunts his 11th intermediate class win. His pole position was followed by a passionate speech about Luis Salom, a rider he had battle against since the Rookies Cup.
Johann Zarco: “This is almost my home Grand Prix. I live closer to here than I do to Le Mans, and many of my friends and family come here because it is nearer to them. I love this circuit and throughout the weekend I have felt good, with a good pace from Friday. This morning we had to find some new references after the layout was changed, and Alex Rins showed that he is very strong. He went very well on the first few laps, but then I was able to improve and kept pole position - my first of this year. I am very happy about that, because the goal was to get on the front row. I think I have a good pace and tomorrow I'll try to keep it up. I will fight my hardest and see if I can win.
“We had a very sad moment this weekend and I want to honour Luis Salom and dedicate a victory to him. He was a good guy and I knew him from the Red Bull Rookies Cup in 2007; since then we competed in the same competitions for many years, all the way through Moto2. Many times we battled together during races and it is very strange what happened. When I talk about what happened I want to cry, as there is so much emotion, but it is part of the job. All of us have to be as focused as possible to try to control everything and avoid these types of accidents, but sometimes they happen. Every rider is very sad.”