CHALLENGING QUALIFYING DAY FOR ZARCO IN VALENCIA

Johann Zarco will start the season-ending Valencia Grand Prix from the fifth row after narrowly failing to progress to Q2 on Saturday. The LCR Honda IDEMITSU rider – who is deputising for the injured Takaaki Nakagami for the third and final time this weekend – could not quite battle his way out of Q1 and will occupy 13^th place on the grid for Sunday’s race.

Sitting tenth overnight, Zarco struggled with the chilly morning conditions in Cheste and failed to maintain a top-10 berth in FP3 as he slipped down to 13^th position in the combined times. The left him chasing a top-two spot in Q1, but the Frenchman just missed out as Alex Rins and Pol Espargaro qualified at his expense.

#5 Johann Zarco (13^th – 1’30.826)

“I’m a little bit disappointed for today. In the morning I lost time because I wasn’t confident with the cold, so only in the last five minutes (of FP3) did I go faster, but it was too late. I think I paid for this in the afternoon, because then I improved and got a better feeling on the bike, but still not enough to be in Q2 and have a better qualifying. It’s a shame, but from this I need to have an even stronger race tomorrow and the feeling is improving with the bike.”