The 125cc second qualifying practice for Sunday’s grand prix in the Czech Republic was dictated by the foul weather conditions. The rain, which began to fall yesterday afternoon and continued throughout the night, eased off before the practice leaving the track fairly dry and causing the riders to choose slick tyres. However, halfway through the practice the rain started again putting an end to any possible contenders for the pole position, with no one managing to improve on yesterday’s times.
Gabor Talmacsi, team Bancaja Aspar, remains in pole position with a time of 2’09”870. The 2007 champion proved himself to be consistently fast on the Czech circuit, whatever the weather. Nico Terol, team Jack&Jones WRB, who was the fastest this morning during free practice will start in second position with Andrea Iannone and Bradley Smith completing the first row on the grid. The second row will comprise of Mike Di Meglio, Sandro Cortese, Pol Espargaro and Simone Corsi.
“Today’s track conditions were very strange”, declared Talmacsi, “so we decided to try out various solutions depending on the situation which provided us with good results. Claiming pole position so close to home and in front of all my fans is really satisfying. Tomorrow’s race will be difficult, the weather forecast is dry which leaves me feeling optimistic seeing as I had a good advantage yesterday which I will try to repeat again.”
“It hasn’t been a very productive day”, remarked Terol. “I didn’t do too many laps because the track surface was still slightly damp and it didn’t improve throughout the practice so I didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks. I’m feeling positive for tomorrow because I was the fastest in the rain this morning and on the few dry laps we managed to do the bike set-up felt good. Starting from the first row is a great result: I’ll have to get a good start to get ahead of the others and give my all to get onto the podium.”
In today’s second official practice the fastest time went to Raffaele De Rosa in 2’18”227 followed by Rabat, Redding and Di Meglio. Bradl was fifth fastest, Corsi sixth and Talmacsi twelfth.
