03 April 2020 – Losail International Circuit – Qatar

The news of this morning, which influenced the result of the qualifying, concerns the penalty inflicted to our pilot by the race direction, that arrived Friday evening. In addition to him, six other pilots, P. Acosta, D. Foggia, S. Garcia, D. Nepa, D.Öncü and R. Rossi; they will have to serve the same penalty. Indeed regardless of the result of the qualifying, all of them will have to start from the pitlane, where a small grid has been prepared. The start will occur when all the pilots on the grid would pass the line at the exit of the pitlane. The penalty is due to the fact that, during the FP2, they drove slowly between corner 15 and 16, causing an inconvenience.

The first session of this Saturday did not generate any change in the combined ranking, since the high temperature and the very strong wind, in opposite direction of the starting straight line, made the track rather slow. Romano in the free practice 3 did 7 laps, obtaining the time of 2’08.721, while Adriàn did twelve laps and obtained as best lap the time of 2’09.018.

Thanks to the times obtained in the FP2 Romano gained direct access to the qualifying 2, while Adriàn has to take part in the qualifying 1. The weather conditions encountered during the qualifying have been even worse than the ones of the previous days, since the strong wind brought a lot of sand on the track. For this reason the times have been much slower, compared to the ones of last week.
Adriàn throughout the qualifying 1 did 5 laps, obtaining as best lap the time of 2’07.145. For only 0.187 s he did not obtain the access to the Q2, while the gap from A. Migno, leader of the qualifying 1, is of 0.616 s. Due to the penalties present, Adriàn will start from fourteenth position.
Throughout the Q2, with the time of 2’07.145, Romano reached the fourteenth position, with a gap from the poleman J. Masia of 1.232 s. He did seven laps.

We remind that the pilots on the grid present in the pitlane will be arranged according to the results obtained in the qualifying.

Following the words of the protagonists.

Romano Fenati:”Unfortunately tomorrow we will have to start from the pitlane, so this will be a hard race but it will not be impossible. I am happy with the feeling that I have with my bike.”

Adriàn Fernàndez: “The free practice 3 was very difficult, because of the wind blew very strong. The feeling that I had throughout the Q1 was very good. I need more work, but the synergy with my team is improving day by day. The race of tomorrow will be just one more possibility to improve.”

Max Biaggi – Team Owner: “We accept the penalty given to Romano yesterday, because the rules have to be respected. Rather we have to reflect on how we can avoid that these kind of things occur. Throughout the last Championship, Romano has been one of the pilots that made the times without the help of any slipstream and this in some tracks is rather penalizing. Now, he find himself to star from the pitlane, making the qualifying useless. I believe that maybe arrived the time in which we have to thing about something, that would totally prevent that these situations occur.”