Scott Redding and Mika Kallio will start tomorrow’s Moto2 Grand Prix of Aragon from the fifth row of the grid, after both riders continued to struggle with rear grip issues during qualifying.

For Redding the lack of rear grip causes the rear tyre to spin up almost immediately he gets on the throttle, with the bike going sideways rather than driving forward. The problem is exacerbated by the flowing nature of the Aragon circuit.

Kallio struggled with exactly the same problem as his Marc VDS teammate, losing time in every turn, as he was unable to open the throttle and get the rear tyre to hook up. The 30-year-old Finn made a change to the rear suspension settings on his Kalex Moto2 machine late in the qualifying session but, while this increased rear traction, it made the bike significantly less stable on the brakes.

Both Marc VDS riders will sit down with their respective crews tonight and look through the data, in a bid to find some improvement ahead of tomorrow morning’s 20-minute warm up.

Livio Loi waited until the dying seconds of this afternoon’s qualifying session to post his fastest lap of the weekend, securing 18th position on the grid for tomorrow’s Moto3 Grand Prix of Aragon with a time of 2’01.030.

It was an impressive recovery from the 16-year-old Belgian, after he struggled with set-up issues in the first free practice yesterday and overnight rain meant nothing was learnt in this morning’s final 40-minute session, which was run on a damp but drying track.

Despite the lack of track time, Loi and his crew managed to make another step forward with the set-up of his Kalex-KTM Moto3 machine, improving further the Marc VDS rider’s feeling with the bike. With additional improvements to evaluate during warm up tomorrow, Loi is confident that a points scoring finish is a realistic goal for tomorrow’s 20-lap race.

Scott Redding #45 // 13th // 1’54.743 // @Reddingpower
“The problem was the same this afternoon as it’s been all weekend; no rear grip. We tried to find something for qualifying, to improve rear traction through the faster corners, but we didn’t really make any progress. At the end I was struggling to find space on track for a quick lap. I did a ride through but came out behind another big group of riders, which meant I never got a clear lap in. In the end I think my fastest time was done on my fourth lap, which is a bit ridiculous. We need to look at everything tonight to see if we can find some more rear grip for the race tomorrow.”

Mika Kallio #36 // 15th // 1’55.010
“I was faster in FP1 yesterday then I was in qualifying today, which is not how it’s supposed to work. The problem is complicated, but basically I can’t open the throttle early enough on corner exit because there is just no grip at the rear. We made a big change to the bike right at the end of the session, which improved the rear traction, but then it was difficult to get the bike stopped for the slower corners. Unfortunately I was maybe trying too hard for a lap time at the end and making too many mistakes, but at least we know we’re moving in the right direction set-up wise. We have some ideas to improve the bike further for the race, which we’ll try in warm up tomorrow.”

Livio Loi #11 // 18th // 2’01.030 // @LivioLoi
“We had a pretty good qualifying, but I need to put in a fast lap earlier in the session in future. My fastest lap came right at the end today, but I think I could have gone even quicker if I’d timed my qualifying runs better. Still we are losing some time in a couple of places, but we know where they are and we’ll make some more small changes to the bike ahead of warm up, to improve things for the race tomorrow.”

Michael Bartholemy // Team Principal
“Livio did a good job in qualifying today, especially having effectively lost two sessions to set up issues and the weather. He left it a bit late for his fast lap; if he’d done it earlier then I think it would have been possible for him to improve further before the end of the session. His feeling with the bike is also much better compared to yesterday and I’m confident he has the pace to finish in the points tomorrow. After the success of the last few races, to see Scott and Mika struggling to qualify on the fifth row is disappointing, but it’s not the end of the world. If we can find just a small improvement in rear traction in warm up tomorrow then I think top five in the race is possible for them both.”