Movistar Yamaha MotoGP riders Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi will start Sunday’s eni Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland from fifth and sixth respectively on the grid.

Both riders had a good start to the sunny 15-minute qualifying session, Lorenzo initially taking second and Rossi taking fifth place with their first flying laps. The Yamaha riders had multiple runs to determine their starting position, improving their times by more than 0.3s from the morning’s free practice.

Both then unfortunately suffered from a lack of grip with their second qualifying tyres, restricting their ability to make a further attack towards the end of Q2.

Lorenzo had a late start to the qualification session in order to get a flying lap in without any traffic. With 11 minutes to go the Spaniard showed his consistency as he rode a sequence of laps into the 1.21’s and clocked a 1’21.526. With six minutes left of the session he came in for a fresh set of tyres to have another go at putting his name at the top of the leading board. Two minutes later he was back on track and able to improve on his time by 0.350s, delivering a session best of 1’21.508 to finish in fifth place.

"Fifth is definitely not what we expected from today's qualifying session, especially because we have a good pace and we’ve always been in the top three during the weekend. In the qualifying we couldn’t take profit from the new tyres and the second tyre didn't have the same traction, I don't know why, it was spinning a lot and felt like a different tyre. It’s going to be a very long race, the first lap will be important because it's difficult to overtake here but we will try to get another podium. We are not so bad in pace so let's see if we can stay with the front guys," stated Lorenzo.

Teammate Rossi had the opposite approach to the qualifying session. The Italian was one of the first riders to get out on track, but soon returned to the pits after two laps. With 11 minutes remaining he was back on his way and immediately shot up to fifth in the standings with a hot lap of 1'21.651. With five minutes remaining Rossi had another return to the pit box, before quickly heading out for another run. The nine time World Champion was unable to improve his time and will start sixth.

Rossi commented,

"Fortunately I did quite a good lap with the first tyre. Usually you can go faster with the second tyre by two or three tenths, but there was something wrong with the second one. It didn’t have any grip and it was also very difficult to get the bike back to the box. I’m on the second row and the second row is the limit for a good race. Today we worked well on the bike, we’re not so bad, but for tomorrow it will be hard."




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