Jorge Martin lines up 15th on Assen grid, Juanfran Guevara 18th

After dominating all three free practice sessions at the Dutch TT, Danny Kent looked to be a clear favourite for pole position in qualifying this afternoon, although that didn’t turn out to be the case.

Jorge Navarro started out strongly before Kent took over at the top, only to be knocked back by Hanika and Bastianini. No fewer than nine riders managed to lap ion the 1’41s and even though Bastianini eventually took pole by three tenths from Navarro, with Hanika completing the front row, it seems anything is possible tomorrow.

Everything is in place for a strong showing from MAPFRE Team Mahindra at the legendary Assen circuit, with Jorge Martín setting his fastest lap time during qualifying in race trim.

Jorge Martín’s goal is to fight for a top ten, just as he did in Barcelona a fortnight ago, after qualifying fifteenth, whilst his team-mate Juanfran Guevara starts from three places further back after qualifying just over a second off pole.

15th Jorge Martín 1.42.371 (18 laps):
“I was hoping to qualify in a better position but I am happy because we set our fastest lap on race rubber and that shows that we will have a good pace tomorrow. I made a good practice start at the end of the session so if everything works the same tomorrow I am sure I can make up positions from the start. We will have to be on guard through the first sector, which is like a bottleneck, and push hard to break into the lead group early one, which I need to do to fight for a top ten finish, like in Catalunya. We will try a couple of things in the warm-up but in general we are ready for this race. We have solved a lot of the problems we have had at other races and I was on course to set a much faster lap time at the end of qualifying but another rider got in my way. I think we will see a big group fighting for the win tomorrow.”

18th Juanfran Guevara 1.42.442 (16 laps):
“The most positive aspect about today is that we have taken a big step from yesterday, although we have still struggled to get on the pace. We went with the medium tyres at the start of qualifying and the lap times came fairly easily but when we put the soft in at the end I didn’t feel as comfortable. Qualifying was very close and we will have to try and manage the first few laps tomorrow to make up positions. If the conditions are normal we will have to push hard on the first two laps and look for slipstreams.”

Source: Aspar Media