Miguel Oliveira and Brad Binder complete final Free Practice sessions for Qatar Grand Prix in eighth and eighteenth position, respectively.

The Red Bull KTM Ajo riders continued the work that they had begun yesterday at the Losail International Circuit in a single 40-minute session on Friday. The third and final Free Practice set the scene for a crucial Qualifying session tomorrow. Miguel Oliveira was eighth and Brad Binder eighteenth, respectfully, whilst on the overall timesheets for Free Practice they were fifth and twenty-second.

Although they were unable to lower their times from yesterday, both riders obtained positive results from the work carried out this Friday. Both worked with used tyres throughout the session, but it was on a single lap with new rubber that the duo set their best times. Oliveira, with a 2:00.913 lap, was within half a second off the fastest time of the night. Binder –setting a 2:01.303– was less than a second off the top.

Oliveira and Binder will face Qualifying for the Qatar GP this Saturday, starting from 6:55pm local time.

Results (Combined practice time FP1-FP2-FP3)
1. Franco Morbidelli (Kalex) 2:00.349
2. Alex Marquez (Kalex) 2:00.372 +0.023
3. Thomas Luthi (Kalex) 2:00.422 +0.073
4. Takaaki Nakagami (Kalex) 2:00.502 +0.153
5. Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 2:00.555 +0.206
22. Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 2:01.303 +0.954

41 BRAD BINDER
“Today there were some pretty good things on the one hand, and some complications on the other. From the first session yesterday I have felt strong and fairly fast, and everything indicated that things would continue to come easily. Everything was going great. Yesterday we tried new tyres during a session and I felt that I was losing control –and I did not understand very well why that was. Today I used them throughout the practice session, until we changed the tyre for the last run and improved our time by a second –although I made some mistakes on that lap. That made me see that maybe the strange feeling came from that set of tyres. I’m not sure, but something was not going as it should have. I’m still not where I would like to be, but tomorrow I will give 100% in order to be able to have a good Qualifying session.”

44 MIGUEL OLIVEIRA
“Today we were lucky that the weather held out in the only practice session we had scheduled for today. We were able to ride quite well, and we were able to do laps with the used tyre and always ran the race setup. I’m sure that the wind on previous days meant that we were looking for too stable a bike, and now that the conditions have improved a bit we can adjust these details for tomorrow in Qualifying and try to get on the front few rows.”