Deniz Öncü finished qualifying for the British Grand Prix in 21st and Aron Canet 26th but both are confident of making strong comebacks in Sunday’s race. 

The hottest British summer this century continued with Silverstone bathed in sunshine throughout Saturday with ambient temperatures hitting 25 degrees.

Moto2 Q2 was red flagged after five minutes due to a crash between Zonta van den Goorbergh and Mario Aji. After a delay of five minutes the session was resumed.

Moto2 will be the first race of the day on Sunday in a revised running order. The 17-lap affair will kick off at 11:15 local time.

Aron Canet, 26th – 2’03.438 

Times were tight in Saturday morning’s FP2 session with 1.2s covering the top 23 riders. Despite being 1.1s off the quickest time, Aron placed 23rd.

Over two separate runs, the Spaniard was able to lap consistently in the 2’03s.

Q1 didn’t go to plan however. The 26-year old could only set the 26th fastest time and suffered a late crash at Turn 4. He was thankfully unharmed in the fall.

“We are trying to adapt the bike to me and I’m trying to adapt to the bike” 

Aron’s comments:

“A tough day. I felt as though we were making progress yesterday even if the timesheets didn’t look so good. This morning I continued working on my riding style. We are trying to adapt the bike to me and I’m trying to adapt to the bike. It’s not a quick process and it still doesn’t feel so natural, this way I’m trying to ride. Qualifying was tough. When the temperature goes up, I find it more difficult to turn. We had a crash but thankfully I’m OK. We have a lot of work to do but the race will be long and I’m still aiming for points.” 

Deniz Öncü, 21st – 2’02.999 

Deniz started the day brightly with his first flying lap in FP2 enough to sit inside the top five places for the session’s first half. He was eventually shuffled back to 16th but his 15-lap run featured nine laps in the 2’02s-03s.

When qualifying rolled around, the 23-year old showed strong speed in sectors two and four, but lost out in one and three.

The Turkish rider set his personal best time on the second lap of his first run. Unfortunately, he was unable to improve in his final exit, which left him 21st on the grid.

“Getting into the points will be my aim” 

Deniz’s comments:

“We finished the day here in England. It was a disastrous qualifying for me. We didn’t play our cards so well. Everybody did their job, but we just couldn’t put everything together. Anyway, tomorrow will be a long race. I’ll try to do my best and getting into the points will be my aim. The problem has been the same for the past few weeks – it feels like we have to do extra over a qualifying lap, to work that bit harder than our rivals, to get the best out of our bike. Today we’ve ended up in this position but tomorrow I’m sure we can improve.”