Correos Prepago Yamaha VR46 Master Camp‘s Manuel Gonzalez continued to be a frontrunner at the Grand Prix of Indonesia on the Saturday. His good speed earned him second place in the Moto2 Q2 session at the Mandalika International Circuit today. Kohta Nozane struggled to get in the lap times he aimed for during Q1. He will start tomorrow‘s Race from P29.
Gonzalez was quick to leave pit lane and was in the zone. He opened the Q2 shoot-out with a 1‘34.282s benchmark lap that put him right at the top of the timesheets. His rivals needed another lap to beat that time and relegated the Spaniard to fourth while he had returned to the pit after his third lap. With seven minutes on the clock, the talented youngster started his second run, and he was on a mission. First, he set a 1‘34.188s on lap 6 that put him into third, onto the front row. Then a 1‘34.158s on his next try moved him up to second place, just 0.003s from pole. He pushed hard on his final lap, but a mistake in the third sector meant the end of his chase for a maiden Moto2 pole. He remained second in the qualifying results, his Moto2-career best grid position.
Nozane took part in Q1. His first flying lap was cancelled due to exceeding track limits. His third lap, a 1‘35.437s, put him in eleventh at the time. The number-5 rider kept pushing but wasn‘t finding a time improvement on his next three tries. He was in 14th when on lap 7 he flashed a red and an orange sector in the live timing, but the Japanese rider couldn‘t close the lap like he wanted to. Unable to better his time also on his final try, he finished the session in 15th place, which puts him in 29th on the grid for tomorrow‘s Race.
The Correos Prepago Yamaha VR46 Master Camp duo will be back in action tomorrow at 13:15 local track time (GMT +8) for the Race.
