Tom Lüthi: “Huge thanks to the whole team”
Only one session was scheduled on Friday for the Moto2 class on the circuit of Losail in Qatar. With a new bike built overnight by his team, Thomas Lüthi (carXpert Interwetten) set the fourth fastest time today ahead of his countryman Dominique Aegerter. We would particularly like to stress the superb performance of Jesko Raffin (Garage Plus Interwetten): the rider from Zurich, a new addition to the Swiss team, was classified tenth, only 0.7 behind the fastest man.
Frédéric Corminboeuf, the boss of CGBM Evolution, company that aligns the two teams on the Moto2 World Championship grid, was satisfied: “The second day is obviously positive, stressing Jesko’s performance in particular. It shows that the decisions we made at the end of last season were good. He signed his fastest time on his own, despite a few mistakes; it is a very good start for what’s coming next. He is fast, intelligent, willing: very positive. For Tom, after the crash on Thursday evening, the session was about gaining his confidence back; he managed it really well, collecting good technical information again ahead of qualifying. Now we will see what’s going to happen on Saturday and especially looking further, not only concentrating on the race on Sunday but the 2017 championship that has only just begun.”
He said…
Thomas Lüthi (carXpert Interwetten, 4th): “My guys did a huge amount of work last night, I really have to thank them for that. The bike suffered a lot on Thursday so I had to get a completely new machine. Bearing all of that in mind, I have to be happy with my session. Although we still have some details to fix, we have progressed to a very high level. Everyone has been talking about the 2017 and 2016 pieces a lot for the last couple of days; what I can say on this topic is that we are using a lot of different things. Although Morbidelli seems to slightly have the upper hand in terms of pace, I am very happy in this regard. On the other hand, we still need to find a little something to do a very fast lap in qualifying.”
Losail (Qat). GP of Qatar Moto2, second day, FP3: 1. Morbidelli (ITA, Kalex), 2’00.349 (160.900 km/h); 2. A. Marquez (SPA, Kalex), 2’00.372; 3. Kent (GBR, Kalex), 2’00.568; 4. Lüthi (SWI, Kalex, carXpert Interwetten), 2’00.703; 5. Aegerter (SWI, Suter), 2’00.774; 6. Vierge (SPA, Tech 3), 2’00.791; 7. Quartararo (FRA, Kalex), 2’00.806; 8. Oliveira (POR, KTM), 2’00.913; 9. Schrötter (GER, Suter), 2’00.972; 10. Raffin (SWI, Kalex, Garage Plus Interwetten), 2’00.999; 26. Simón (SPA, Kalex, Garage Plus Interwetten), 2’02.117. 33 classified.
