Salom on a mission as Moto3™ heads to Motegi

Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Sandro Cortese may be in the lead by 51 points as the Moto3™ descends on Motegi for the AirAsia Grand Prix of Japan this weekend, but with RW Racing GP’s Luis Salom on-song, the title will still be a hard fought affair.

After his emphatic win at Aragón last weekend where he fought through the pain after two big crashes, Salom will be certain that the title is within reach. Cortese on the other hand still has to be consistently fast, and will be aiming to keep a gap to both Salom and Blusens Avintia’s Maverick Viñales. Viñales, who still has an outside chance of winning the title was last time plagued by an ECU problem, which saw him unable to contest the race. He and his team will be hoping for no such problems this time, as the pre-season favourite looks to get his challenge back on track.

Mapfre Aspar Team Moto2’s Jonas Folger, who recorded his third podium in four races, will head to Japan brimming with confidence after yet another strong display for the Valencia-based team. Cortese’s British teammate Danny Kent was subject to some tough overtaking moves in Aragón and will aim to muscle his own way onto the podium in Motegi this time, to emulate his success in Assen earlier this year. With this in mind, JHK t-shirt Laglisse’s Efrén Vázquez may have a tougher time to fight his way to the front, yet the Spaniard will once again be battling until the final turn. Racing Team Germany’s Louis Rossi will be riding with a clear head this weekend, after singing a contract with Tech 3 Racing to race for its Moto2™ team next year.

The battle for Rookie of the Year has been blown wide open again as Team Italia FMI’s Romano Fenati suffered an engine failure in the last race, allowing Estrella Galicia 0,0’s Alex Rins to get within 14 points of the Italian. There will be three new faces for 2012 on the Moto3™ grid, as Spaniard Josep Rodriguez has permanently replaced Jasper Iwema in the Moto FGR team, while there will be two Japanese wildcards in the form of Project u JC Harc’s Hyuga Watanabe and 18 Garage Racing Team’s Yuudai Kamei.