Qualifying
After a heavy morning shower at the Red Bull Ring, the track surface had soon dried sufficiently for slick tyres to be used in FP2 and Qualifying. Although fast over longer runs on Friday, Bastianini couldn’t get comfortable with Michelin’s soft rear tyre in Q1. As he struggled in Sectors three and four, the 28-year-old posted the seventh fastest time, which put him 17th overall. Espargaró fared better in Q1, finishing fourth and just 0.2s off Johann Zarco’s fastest time for 14th on the grid.

Sprint
Conditions were close to perfect around the 4.35km layout ahead of the 14-lap Sprint race. Although he started in the middle of the sixth row, Bastianini was confident of his speed over a longer run. The Italian felt his way into the 14-lap shootout, holding 17th on lap one before launching a series of attacks.

Sitting 15th on lap three, ‘La Bestia’ continued his forward trajectory and late passes on Luca Marini and Fabio Quartararo, plus a crash for another rider, lifted him to eleventh place.

Espargaró chose Michelin’s medium rear tyre in a bid to gather more information for Sunday’s race. The Spaniard lost two positions on the first lap and was soon caught up in a tough fight with Toprak Razgatlioglu. Once clear of the Turk, he focused on catching Marini ahead but ran out of time to complete the overtake and finished 14th.

The main event is still to come for Red Bull KTM Tech3 with Warm Up kicking off Sunday’s action at 9:40 (UTC+2) before the 28-lap race, which starts at 14:00 (UTC+2).

Enea Bastianini: “We don’t know what happened today. In Practice I was confident because I was pretty fast, but when we put the soft tyre in for the time attack in Qualifying, I had no grip with the front. I just felt a lot of pushing from the rear. I did my best, but the lap time was a disaster. The Sprint was a bit better. If you are behind other riders, you can’t do your maximum, and it’s very difficult to come back. This is the reality of MotoGP at the moment. Tomorrow we’ll need to save the rear tyre for the end of the race because the drop is big. We’ll need to pay attention to this more than other races tomorrow.”

Pol Espargaró: “Not such a bad day. We chose the medium rear tyre for the Sprint, just so we have more information for tomorrow for the KTM guys. My feeling at the start wasn’t bad at all. The only thing was I started battling with Toprak [Razgatlioglu] in the middle of the race for nothing and I lost quite a lot of time. When I overtook him, I could find my rhythm. I tried to catch Luca Marini ahead, but he was so far away, and I didn’t have enough time. Anyway, it was useful for the factory to get some information for tomorrow and we can work a bit better. The rear tyre drop is going to be a factor tomorrow, so we’ll have to manage that, but we’ll be prepared. Let’s get stuck in.”

Nicolas Goyon, Team Manager: “Well, it was a good Sprint for both our boys. Enea struggled in Qualifying this morning. We hoped for a better result but P17 was too far off. But we know how Enea races and he ended up in a good P11, which gives us some hope for a good result tomorrow - a top eight finish is an achievable target. It was a good qualifying for Pol. He qualified 14th and then ended the Sprint in 14th with a medium rear tyre. He was clearly focussing on working for tomorrow’s main race and we hope this work will pay off. We are quite confident that both our riders can bring a stronger result tomorrow.”