The times dropped and Jaume Masiá led the second practice of the Moto3 Japanese GP – which took place this Friday at Mobility Resort Motegi.
Facing the possibility of rain tomorrow, the riders had to secure a spot in the top 14 in this session and attacks on the clock started early. The first leader was Deniz Öncü (Red Bull KTM Ajo), ahead of Masiá (Leopard Racing/Honda), with Daniel Holgado (Red Bull KTM Tech3) starting in third.
The man who followed in the lead was Holgado, who in the second flying laps was superior to Masiá and Ivan Ortolá (Angeluss MTA Team/KTM). Times continued to evolve and Masiá was next in the lead, with Öncü in second. The table changed again 22 minutes before the end, when Holgado took the lead again.
With a quarter of an hour to go, another change in the lead, when Collin Veijer (Liqui Moly Husqvarna Intact GP) made it to the top. Shortly after, his teammate Ayumu Sasaki moved up to second.
In the last five minutes, the battle for fast laps intensified, with Holgado back in the lead. However, Diogo Moreira’s time (MT Helmets-MSi/KTM) in the first practice was only beaten later on. Three minutes before the end, a series of improvements led three riders to beat that time, with Ortolá moving to the top.
However, he was later beaten by Masiá, who lapped in 1m57.081s. The Spaniard further improved to 1m57.068s and stayed in the lead with a 0.108s advantage over Ortolá. Sasaki, Holgado, and Öncü completed the top five. After leading, Veijer was 14th with only 28 thousandths of a second ahead of the 15th, David Muñoz (BOE Motorsports/KTM). The Dutchman missed out on direct qualification for the second phase of qualifying, so he needs the rain not to hit Motegi on Saturday morning to keep hopes of making it to Q2 alive.
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