Monterey, 4 July: LCR Honda MotoGP rider Randy De Puniet will start tomorrow’s U.S. Grand Prix from 14th position following today’s qualifying session at Laguna Seca Raceway which hosts the eight round of the season. The Frenchman riding the Honda RC212V clocked a 1’23.147 fastest time on Q-tyres at the 3.610 Km Californian track with a gap of 1.469s to today’s fastest time.

The second day of practices started out with cloudy skies and mist with air temperature of 18°C (ground 29°C) but the ground temperature rose up to 46°C in the 60-minute qualifying session with the 28-year-old still struggling with rear grip problems which affected his grid position for tomorrow’s 32-lap race. Lorenzo topped the time sheets today (1’21.678) followed by Rossi and Stoner. 

De Puniet – 14th – 1’23.147

De Puniet – 14th: “Honestly we have struggled since yesterday to find a good set up which makes me comfortable on the bike. After the first run this afternoon, I thought we found the right direction as I could do decent lap times on race trim. But as soon as I came in on soft tyres, we realized that we could not improve our lap time. I made a few mistakes and found some traffic in the last minutes but my machine is not good enough at the moment. I am sure the guys will work hard to fix our issues for tomorrow’s warm up session”.