MotoGP – Japanese GP – Qualifying
The Japanese GP is here this time with MotoGP and we just finished the qualifying session at Motegi. Want to know what happened at the land of the rising sun? Keep reading!
Dani Pedrosa was one of the absences of the weekend after a crash during the FP2 and having a fracture of his collarbone due the impact of the crash and was replaced by Aoyama who had to make the Q1. Iannone will also miss the Japanese GP and Hector Barbera will ride his Ducati this weekend, with Jones racing with the Avintia. Redding and Bradl were the fastest riders during the first part of Q1 with Bautista really close to them, taking the best time, being with his teammate on top of the qualifying for Q2, but when Bradl was coming faster than everyone he crashed at turn 11. Redding was coming really close to Bradl time and he took it so Bautista and Redding will be the riders who will go to Q2 while the back part of the grid will be completed with Bradl, Miller, Smith, Nakasuga, Hernandez, Rabat, Laverty, Baz, Jones and Aoyama.
Time for the second session of qualifying and a few minutes after the green light Alvaro Bautista crashed at turn 9, but he could come back to do the rest of the lap. Marc Marquez was the first rider who made a lap and we wasn’t beaten by the Yamaha riders, but the spaniard was not happy enough so he improved his lap by 4 tenths. Rossi improved his lap and was now second, but he was really far of the time of the championship leader. Lorenzo, Crutchlow and Aleix improved also their time and could be faster than Rossi but they couldn’t reach the 93’s time.
Last laps for the riders and Barbera was using Lorenzo’s rear tyre to improve his time and trying to be on front row. Rossi improved his lap and took the first position by just less two tenths and Marquez made a mistake on his lap losing 1,5 seconds, but he could make another lap. The championship contenders were fighting for the pole position but Marquez was not improving.
Chequered flag and Marquez made another mistake on his lap while Valentino Rossi was improving. The italian rider could take the pole position, and again we have the top 3 riders with 64 pole positions.
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The first row for tomorrow will be for the championship contenders, Rossi, Marquez and Lorenzo. The rest of the Q2 grid was completed by Dovizioso, Crutchlow, Aleix, Viñales, Barbera, Pol, Petrucci, Redding and Bautista.
Tomorrow Rossi will try to take points to a Marquez on a track where he still hasn’t win. What do you think will happen tomorrow? We’ll get the answers soon, but until then… Be mini-good!