Filip Salac was the surprising leader of the Moto2 free practice at the Japanese GP. Friday morning’s session in Motegi had a slippery track due to some light rain, which resulted in several crashes.
The conditions also meant that lap times were constantly being beaten, with multiple leaders over the course of the 40 minutes. It took 26 minutes for a rider to hold onto the lead in a solid way.
At that point, Ai Ogura (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia/Kalex) set times that kept him at the top for nearly ten minutes until he was overtaken by Marcos Ramírez (OnlyFans American Racing Team/Kalex).
The Japanese rider briefly regained the best time, but was ultimately beaten by Salac (Elf Marc VDS/Kalex) when the Czech rider set the fastest lap of all: 1m50.287s.
Ogura didn’t improve until the end and finished 0.014s behind, followed by Ramírez, 0.019s behind. Arón Canet (Fantic Racing/Kalex) and Alonso López (Beta Tools SpeedUp/Boscoscuro) completed the top five.
Some of the riders who crashed included the second-place rider in the championship, Sergio García (MT Helmets-MSi/Boscoscuro), Fermín Aldeguer (Beta Tools SpeedUp/Boscoscuro), and Tony Arbolino (Elf Marc VDS/Kalex), with no major consequences for their physical condition.
Timesheets:
There was nobody better than @FilipSalac12 at #Moto2 FP 🔝@AiOgura79 and @24Marcosramirez complete the Top 3🙌 #JapaneseGP 🇯🇵 pic.twitter.com/Wvn63WZabY
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) October 4, 2024
