Hello MiniFans!

Welcome to the rainy Sepang International Circuit to enjoy a new qualifying session for this 2018 MotoGP Season. The circuit at Malaysia gave us on the last years great races and moments for MiniBikers like the famous “Mapping 8” between the Ducati riders. What memories will give us this year? Let’s start now with the qualifying session.

When the first round of qualifying session started, rain appeared on the track and the riders wanted to make their laps as fast as possible in case there was a red flag, but they weren’t able to make the lap, riders complained about the rain and had to stop the session. After an hour of session with the announcement of the new schedule for tomorrow’s race, the Q1 started again.

On their first attempt, both Espargaró brothers were on top of the session followed by Smith and Simeon. Smith improved his time and was in provisional pole followed by Aleix and Bradley who tried to improve even more his time crashed and had to run to take his second bike while Aleix took again the first position. Pirro, who was replacing Lorenzo for this race, was in second position with only 3 minutes left for the session. Álvaro Bautista improved not only his time, he improved even Aleix’s time and was on provisional pole at this Q1 session. With the chequered flag, the session finished as follow.

Q1 Results:
Álvaro Bautista // Aleix Espargaró
Scott Redding // Michele Pirro // Xavier Simeon
Pol Espargaró // Bradley Smith // Thomas Luthi
Franco Morbidelli // Stefan Bradl // Karel Abraham
Takaaki Nakagami // Hafizh Syahrin // Jordi Torres

With a most stable track we start the second round of qualifying with all the riders with wet tyres on their bikes. Marquez was on top after the first attempt followed by Petrucci and Miller. Everyone was making their laps trying to avoid mistakes, but it was Aleix Espargaró who crashed when he was trying to make his lap. With just 5 minutes for the end of the session we saw something that we were not used to, Marquez crashed, but he managed to return to the track, but his advantage was so big that no one was able to improve his 2:12.161.

Time for the final laps for the riders and we saw how both Andrea improved their times with Iannone 2nd and Dovizioso 3rd. The maniac even complained about Marquez on his lap while Zarco improve the times of both italian riders and was 2nd. Dovizioso tried to improve his time on his final lap but he crashed. Rossi improved and was 2nd, but it was Zarco who finished in that position.

Q2 Results:
Marc Marquez // Johann Zarco // Valentino Rossi
Andrea Iannone // Andrea Dovizioso // Jack Miller
Danilo Petrucci // Alex Rins // Alvaro Bautista
Dani Pedrosa // Maverick Viñales // Aleix Espargaró

That’s it for now. Tomorrow all the races will be done 2h earlier to avoid the huge rain that we saw right now, so get ready for the fight for the victory at Sepang. Will it be another victory for Marquez or are we going to see another winner like Zarco or Rossi? We can’t wait to know what will happen.