PortugueseGP: difficult qualifying due to technical problems

An issue with the bike's electronics management system has left Tom Lüthi without much time to try to qualify for Q2 and he will start twenty-second in the 888 Grand Prémio in Portugal.

Tom Lüthi has not been lucky today during the qualifying session held at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve. The Swiss rider’s Kalex had a problem in the electronic management system as soon as Q1 started. Tom went into the garage immediately and the team identified and fixed the problem as quickly as possible. Even so, this failure has left him with almost no time to fight for a pass to Q2. Lüthi was able to complete only two full laps and his pace was not good enough to move on to the next session. The #12 rider will start tomorrow from the eighth row of the grid after being twenty-second with a time of 1'44.773. Magneti Marelli has indicated to the team that they will work on this problem so it does not happen again in any Moto2 motorcycle.

The Moto2 race of the Grande Prémio 888 de Portugal will take place tomorrow, Sunday 18th of April at 15:30h (local time).

Tom Lüthi (P22 | 1'43.993)

Unfortunately, it has been a very unlucky day for us. We couldn’t make it to go directly to Q2 in FP3, it was close. From the lap time, it was not a big gap to make it. Anyway, we were very motivated to go through Q1 and then make the step into Q2. Unfortunately, in Q1 we had some technical issue. This can happen, this is racing but this destroyed us quite a lot, specially my rhythm. I just had two full laps towards the end of the practice. I was trying to put all in on these two laps but my rhythm was not good enough. I couldn’t get enough out of it to still make the step into Q2. The race is tomorrow and we keep on believing and working. The most important day is tomorrow with the race.

• Results FP3
• Results Q1
• Results Q2
• Startig Grid