SECOND ROW FOR SALAČ
The second day of action at the Mobility Resort Motegi smiles to Team QJMOTOR Gresini Moto2, who will start tomorrow’s race from fifth place on the grid courtesy of an excellent performance by Filip Salač. The Czech rider did not have an easy life today, especially in FP3 where he earned the direct seed to Q2 with the last spot available due to an unusual number of yellow flag situations in the second part of the session. The rider #12 was first lucky but then really great in Q2 as he narrowly missed on a front-row start (80 thousandths of a second), maybe due to a small mistake.
Jeremy Alcoba, on the other hand, does not shine as he struggled with some issues with his motorcycles. His qualifying effort finished in the first session with the 23rdquickest lap-time, more than one second shy of pole position. The Spanish will need to bounce back tomorrow with the top 15 as the minimum goal.
5th– FILIP SALAC #12 (1’50.131s)
“Another good day in Japan. FP3 didn’t go as we’d hoped: we had a good rhythm, but as soon as we put new tyres on, we were slowed down by many yellow flag situations. I did four quick lap-times that were all cancelled. We knew we could be quick, top-9 worth. It went even better despite a mistake at the exit of the straight: I would have been in the top three otherwise but it’s good this way, too. Now let’s get ready for tomorrow.”
23rd – JEREMY ALCOBA #52 (1’50.876s)
“It has been a very difficult weekend so far as we couldn’t come up with a valid solution. We made a good step forward lap-time-wise in Q1, as we found half a second out of the blue, but we’re starting the race from too far back and the race tomorrow will be a complex one.”
