FIFTH ROW FOR TAKA IN THAILAND

Takaaki Nakagami will start the Grand Prix of Thailand from the fifth row of the grid after heavy rain complicated matters during Saturday’s action. The LCR Honda IDEMITSU rider had to settle for 14^th position overall as he was unable to progress from Q1 at the Chang International Circuit.

Sitting in 14^th after Friday’s free practice, Taka was denied the chance to improve his time in FP3 by the early downpours in Buriram. The track had dried out for the qualifying sessions, but the Japanese star finished in fourth in Q1 – just behind team-mate Cal Crutchlow – and now has work to do in Sunday’s race to achieve his target of a top-10 finish.

#30 Takaaki Nakagami (14^th – 1’31.388)

“Of course, this result is not what we wanted or expected. So far this weekend, we have struggled a bit with the set-up of the bike and in all the sessions I’ve not been able to get into the top 10. Once again in qualifying I was not able to improve the lap time as we wanted, we were improving little by little, but I made a few mistakes as well. But even without those mistakes I’m not sure I could have made it into Q2, so we’re a bit disappointed with our performance. The weather forecast is a bit unstable for tomorrow, so we’ll have to prepare well for all conditions and see what we can do, I aim to get into the top 10.”