At Motegi, the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team is directly in Q2 with Fabio Di Giannantonio, while Franco Morbidelli is sixteenth.
MotoGP left Europe to kick off the overseas races starting from Motegi: on Friday of the Japanese Grand Prix, the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team secured the direct access to Q2 with Fabio Di Giannantonio, who finished fifth. Franco Morbidelli ended up sixteenth after a crash in the final minutes of the session.
It was a steadily improving day for Di Giannantonio, who consistently made progress both in the time attack and in the race pace. Fabio, who was fourth in FP1, ended Friday in fifth place overall in the Practice session, and with his time (1:43.391) he secured the direct access to Q2 in Saturday’s qualifying.
More challenging Friday for Morbidelli, who started in the right way by ending the FP1 in sixth place. Despite improving his time attack in the Practice (1:43.828), a crash prevented him from taking full advantage of the new tyres, and he will have to go through Q1 in qualifying.
The Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team is back on track on Saturday for qualifying, which begins at 10:50 a.m. (local time, +7 CET). The Sprint race will follow at 3:00 p.m. (local time). The Japanese Grand Prix will end on Sunday with the main race, that will start at 2 p.m. (local time).
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO
“Today I had fun on the bike – it had been a while since that happened – and we were fast. This means that we're already in a good place with the bike. I have a good feeling and I’m able to push making the lines I want. I’m happy, it’s a good start. Our strongest sector is T2, while I still need to improve the downhill braking, where I’m not as precise as I’d like to be. We’re working a lot in this area because hard braking is crucial here. We also focused our work on the time attack and the Sprint, which are the weaker parts of the weekend.”
FRANCO MORBIDELLI
“I am not happy with today: we had the speed to go through Q2, we were in eight place with the ideal laptime. Unfortunately, we just had one time attack with the right tyre, then I made a small mistake, and I crashed at Turn 9. I went back on track with the soft front tyre, but I couldn’t go through just for 94 thousandths. It’s a pity, we will have some extra work to do tomorrow to pass Q1, which is always difficult, but it will be interesting. Let’s see what we can do to be in Q2.”
