KUALA LUMPUR: Moto3 rider Adam Norrodin will have to start from the back of the grid at the French Motorcycle Grand Prix today after an unlucky outing in qualifying in Le Mans yesterday.
The Petronas Sprinta Racing rider suffered a massive crash late in the session at the Le Mans circuit but was fortunate to walk away without serious injuries.
His time of one minute and 43.450 seconds was, however, only good for 28th (last) which was substantially slower than the 1:43.082s he had clocked for 22nd in the third practice (FP3) earlier in the day.
Adam admitted that it was not his day but vowed to push hard for a points position in today’s race. "We made some positive changes to the bike in FP3, I was happy with the progress we made and felt confident," he said.
"At the end of FP3 and start of qualifying, we tried the soft tyres but I did not feel that good on them, so we changed to mediums in the middle of qualifying.
"The pace on mediums was, however, not enough to challenge the faster guys, so we changed back to soft tyres. Unfortunately, it was worse than the mediums.
"I tried to push in the last two laps but suffered a big high-side (crash) at turn six.”
His teammate, Ayumu Sasaki (Japan) was also far from his best with his 1:43.380s only good for 26th on the grid.
Spaniard Jorge Martin took pole on 1:42.039s with former SIC Racing team rider Jakub Kornfeil (Czech) and Italian Enea Bastianini completing the front row after clocking 1:42.162s and 1:42.163s respectively.