Maverick Viñales finished eleventh in the Dutch Grand Prix, but as soon as he got off the bike at the end of training he said he was convinced he could “make a great race”. “You have to be focused, but I see a top five as feasible,” he said. The Roses driver insisted that “I have more confidence than in Germany because I know I can give a little more of myself here, but the most important thing is to understand things and we have understood that we are not ready for the qualification yet”.
The Italian Pecco Bagnaia, the British Jake Dixon and the Japanese Ayumu Sasaki reigned yesterday in their respective categories in the “cathedral” of the TT Assen, the scene this weekend of the Netherlands Grand Prix of motorcycling. Bagnaia added his fourth best practice classification of the season, in addition to setting a new absolute record for the track by rolling in 1: 31.504, a record held by the Rosinc Maverick Viñales since last year, when he was pilot of the Yamah 1 and rolled in 1: 31.814. The Frenchman Fabio Quartararo finished second in 116 thousandths, with Aleix Espargaró, fifth.
On the other hand, in Moto2 Dixon added his second best training classification of the year and thus took away the chance to get the first “pole position” of his career to the Girona Albert Arenas, the his own teammate and with just 51 thousandths of a second between the top four, Dixon, Arenas, the British Sam Lowes and the Japanese Ai Ogura, with Alonso López and Jorge Navarro after them completing the first two starting lines.
