Following a Friday full of mixed conditions, Saturday’s action at the famous Red Bull Ring in Austria took place in the dry. Although both, Andrea Dovizioso and Darryn Binder managed to improve on day two, they’ll have to launch round 13 of the 2022 MotoGP World Championship season from seventh row on the grid, respectively.
WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team’s Dovizioso kicked off the race weekend yesterday with a decent feeling, which he confirmed in this morning’s Free Practice three session when he went 0.794 seconds faster than in FP2 on Friday. Yet a crash at the end of FP4 left him losing a bit of confidence. He managed to finish Qualifying one in ninth though, but couldn’t further improve on his lap time compared to FP3. He’ll head the seventh row on tomorrow’s grid.
Meanwhile Binder increased his confidence with each session. In the third practice session this morning, the premier class rookie improved his lap time from Friday by 1.103 seconds and went another 0.144 seconds quicker in Qualifying one, which helped him to find a good connection to the rest of the field. The South African was eventually only 0.243 seconds slower than his team mate to finish Q1 in P11, which means he will line up in the seventh row when the lights go out for his 13th MotoGP race tomorrow at 14:00 local time.
