After a Day 1 that fell victim to rain followed by a more useful Day 2, the third and final outing for the Moto3™ grid at Losail International Circuit saw the weather return as a key protagonist. High winds throughout most of the day culminated in a sandstorm and a Red Flag in the third Moto3™ session, before thunder and lightning brought a definitive close to the preseason for the lightweight class.
That left the big names from combined times on Day 2 holding on to their places on the timesheets, with few able to improve. Returning Romano Fenati (Marinelli Rivacold Snipers) keeps his throne, ahead of Jorge Martin (Del Conca Gresini Moto3) by a tiny 0.039 margin. Martin suffered a crash at T15 on Saturday but only suffered a small contusion to his hand. Third on the timesheets remained Aron Canet (Estrella Galicia 0,0), again incredibly close and only a further 0.020 in arrears.
Gabriel Rodrigo (RBA Boe Racing Team) impressed to take fourth overall with a 2:06.957, with Belgian Leopard Racing rider Livio Loi locking out the top five. Nicolo Bulega (Sky Racing Team VR46) took sixth on combined to complete an impressive preseason, just in front of impressive rookie Ayumu Sasaki (SIC Racing Team).
Niccolo Antonelli (Red Bull KTM Ajo), Juanfran Guevara (RBA BOE Racing Team) and Philipp Oettl (Südmetall Schedl GP Racing) completed the top ten, with Jakub Kornfeil (Peugeot MC Saxoprint) in P11 and British Talent Team rider John McPhee debuting the new outfit in P12. Full results are here!
That’s now a wrap on testing for the lightweight class, with the next time on track Thursday at Losail as FP1 gets underway at 18:00 local time (GMT +3) and we prepare to go racing.