The Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider set the thirteenth fastest time in qualifying with teammate Tom Luthi set to start the race from position twenty.

The MotorLand venue was again swamped by sunny and warm conditions with a track temperature of 45 degrees when Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS riders Franco Morbidelli and Tom Luthi took to the 5 km circuit for qualifying.

Franco Morbidelli continued his strong pace in FP3 to be 13th overall and moved up one spot to 12th in FP4 running in race trim. The Italian rider opened Q1 with the second fastest time but as the session closed Morbidelli did not get the chance to improve on his 1’48.009 and claim a place in Q2. Morbidelli will defend his lead in the Rookie of the Year points from thirteenth on the grid.

For Tom Luthi the day started impressively when he cut one second from his previous best time to be 20th after FP3 and then 22nd in FP4.  A further improvement of 0.3s in Q1 saw the Swiss rider finish with a time of 1’48.988 for 20th on the grid.

The Sunday morning warm-up will be at 9:40am with the 23 lap Aragon GP, round 14 of the MotoGP world championship, set to start at 2pm.

Franco Morbidelli: 13th, 1’48.009, +0.186, 36 laps, 180 km

“It will be a tough and hot race”

“I had good speed today but unfortunately in qualifying I could not make my second time attack but overall I’m happy about how the day went. It will be a tough race, there are many riders with a fast pace and it will be very hot so it will be important to manage the tyres.”

Tom Luthi: 20th, 1’48.988, +1.165, 34 laps, 170 km

“We made some good steps forward”

“It was a positive day and we made some good steps forward but so did all the other guys. I had a much better feeling with the bike today so qualifying was positive. But we still have to understand and analyse all the information for the tyre choice for the race, especially for the rear tyre and also the front. This track is a little bit special for the front tyre and today I had a better feeling with the hard front.”