It seems everywhere you look this weekend there is wet and wild weather as was the case in Argentina where dark clouds greeted the MotoGP riders at the Termas de Río Hondo circuit with rain falling shortly before the start of the third and final free practice session.
As a result, Ducati rider Jorge Lorenzo did not have a chance to improve on his times from Friday and had to take part in Q1 early in the afternoon.
He finished sixth in Q1 and will start from row 6 in 16th position.
“It was a pity about today's rain, because I'm sure we could have improved our position in dry conditions a lot,” the Spaniard said. “Unfortunately in both FP3 and Q1 we couldn't take advantage of the improvements that we found with a new riding position on the bike, even though I know I still need time to get used to it. Tomorrow however it should be dry and let's see if I can manage to put in a better performance in the race than I did in practice.”
Meanwhile, teammate Andrea Dovizioso immediately set an excellent time, but he was passed by Rossi and then Pedrosa in the final seconds of the session and finished third, missing out on access to Q2 by just a fraction.
The Italian rider will start tomorrow's race from the fifth row of the grid in thirteenth place.
“Unfortunately this morning I wasn't able to complete the FP3 session because it began to rain and so in the end I didn't get into the top 10,” he said. “In Q1, despite having set a good time, I ended up in third place in the final seconds of the session and it was a real pity because I'm sure that in Q2 we could have obtained a good position on the grid, which is very important here. If that's the way it went, then it means that we still have to improve a lot of things, but even though I'm starting down the grid, I think we have every possibility of moving up and doing a good race.”
The Argentina GP is scheduled to get underway Sunday at 4 pm local time
