Andrea Migno (Sky Racing Team VR46) will begin the Japanese GP from pole position at the Twin Ring Motegi for the first time in his career, as the Italian set the second fastest lap in the QP session behind home hero Hiroki Ono (Honda Team Asia). Ono has a 3-place penalty from FP1 for riding too slowly in sectors of the track, and will therefore begin his home GP from P4. Freshly crowned Moto3™ World Champion Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Ajo) was third fastest in the session and will line-up P2, as the South African topped FP3 on Saturday morning after two crashes on Friday and completed his comeback in qualifying. Completing the front row after setting the fourth fastest lap will be Enea Bastianini (Gresini Racing Moto3), who gains an early advantage over rival Jorge Navarro (Estrella Galicia 0,0) in the fight over P2 in the Championship, as Navarro qualified in eleventh. Nicolo Bulega (Sky Racing Team VR46) will start fifth behind penalized Ono, ahead of new teammate Lorenzo Dalla Porta – who recovered from some tough sessions to line up on the second row. An incident in the final seconds saw Juanfran Guevara (RBA Racing) and Niccolo Antonelli (Ongetta-Rivacold) crash out, with Antonelli having set the seventh quickest laptime, and the Italian will begin the race just in front of Frenchman Fabio Quartararo (Leopard Racing). Drive M7 SIC Racing Team’s Adam Norrodin put in a stunning session to finish P9 and get a top ten start, with Schedl GP Racing’s Philipp Oettl completing that top ten. Bo Bendsneyder was able to better his fastest time in the qualifying session but that only resulted in a 27th spot at the end.
64 BO BENDSNEYDER :
“Today’s qualifying session did not turn out as we wanted; it was one of the worst qualifying sessions I’ve had this season. We had only one rear soft tyre, which is the one that I felt best with, and we put that on for the second run. After qualifying we saw that maybe it would have been better using it for the last stint, but it is very easy to say what would have been the best decision in hindsight. We can’t do anything about it now, so we must keep looking forward. Tomorrow we must try to find a better setup in the Warmup and fight hard in the race to move up as many positions as possible. That’s what we have to do.”
Results qualifying practice:
source: motogp.com, ajo.fi
