Somkiat Chantra made a clean sweep on the first day of the Moto2 Japanese GP. The rider was once again the fastest in the second practice, leading for a good part of the session.
After the first flying laps, Pedro Acosta (Red Bull KTM Ajo/Kalex) was leading ahead of Chantra (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia/Kalex) – who continued to show speed after leading P1. The Thai rider even took the lead with 31 minutes to go, while his teammate Ai Ogura moved up to second.
For many minutes, the changes in the timing table only occurred in positions behind Chantra… until Sam Lowes (Elf Marc VDS/Kalex) dethroned him with seven minutes to go. This was an important phase of the session, as riders were trying to set fast times to secure a spot in Q2 directly in case of rain tomorrow during the third practice.
After being beaten, Chantra did not give up and returned to the top of the table, surpassing Lowes. Acosta improved, but not enough to overtake the two competitors ahead of him. By the end, Chantra improved once again for the fastest lap of the day (1m50.396s), finishing 0.037s ahead of Arón Canet (Pons Wegow Los40/Kalex) who beat Lowes.
Acosta and Ogura completed the top five. In the combined standings, Alonso López (Beta Tools SpeedUp/Boscoscuro) is the last in a direct qualifying position for Q2, in 14th with a 0.058s margin over teammate Alonso López.
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