The Ajo Motorsport rider overcame yesterday’s crash to take third place in qualifying, just 0.074s off of pole position.

Zarco, Moto2, British MotoGP 2015

Johann Zarco recovered rapidly on Saturday’s crash at the British GP. The Ajo Motorsport rider quickly put a fall that occurred in the second free practice session behind him to place himself on the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s race. In a tighter than ever qualifying session, the Frenchman paced just 74 thousandths off of pole position.

FP3 served as a session for Zarco to regain confidence on the bike following yesterday’s crash. It did not take much for the Frenchman to find that confidence, who paced within the top ten from the session’s start. As the minutes passed, the Ajo Motorsport rider beat his time from the previous day and proceeded to move into fourth place in the timings -2:07.345-.

After working with worn tires during his first outing, Zarco made a run for pole, moving into second position with 25 minutes remaining. In the final moments of qualifying, the Ajo Motorsport rider had several red helmets on the time screen to finally finish with a 2:06.419. This was just short of the fastest lap of the weekend by less than a tenth of a second.

Sunday’s Moto2 race will begin at 11.20am local time, where Zarco will have a chance to achieve his eleven consecutive podiums, the longest ever in this category.

Results (Qualifying practice)
1. Sam Lowes (Speed Up) 2:06.345
2. Alex Rins (Kalex) 2:06.403 +0.058
3. Johann Zarco (Ajo Motorsport) 2:06.419 +0.074
4. Tito Rabat (Kalex) 2:06.588 +0.243
5. Thomas Luthi (Kalex) 2:06.801 +0.456

 Johann Zarco,
“I’m not at all disappointed with third place. In fact, I have to be happy because after the fall I had yesterday it could have been much worse. The race is important and I think starting from the third position is a positive and the first corner is a right. Our times were very fast and we are pleased with how we’ve improved. I trust the team’s work and hope we will be able to improve some small details this afternoon  that will help us even more to feel comfortable and to fight for the victory tomorrow.”