Moto3 Austin: “Weather” pole for Philipp Oettl, uphill race for Antonelli

Red Bull Grand Prix of The Americas Moto3 Qualifying – The weather was the real protagonist of the qualifying for the Moto3 class Americas Grand Prix, the third round of the 2016 world championship.

The riders took to the track with rain tyres, but immediately returned to put on slicks, as the track, wet since the end of Moto2's third free practice, was drying.

The "quickest" to take advantage of the slicks was the German Philipp Oettl, who on the KTM of Team Schedl GP Racing lapped in 2:18.398, winning his first career pole.

The closest of the opponents was the Spaniard Jorge Navarro, 0.587s behind. The Monlau Honda Team rider preceded our Enea Bastianini, riding the Team Gresini Honda.

Romano Fenati will instead start from the second row, riding the Team Sky VR46 KTM. The driver from Ascoli achieved the fifth fastest time, behind Jakub Kornfeil and ahead of Adam Norrodin.

In the third row we have another Italian, Andrea Locatelli, riding the Leopard Racing KTM. Rookie Nicolò Bulega also did well, having achieved the eleventh time and will start from the fourth row on the KTM of Team Sky VR46.

The one who pays heavily for the rain that fell immediately after the start is our Niccolò Antonelli, who will be forced to start from the tenth row. It therefore promises to be an uphill race for the Team Ongetta Rivacold rider, second in the world rankings, five points behind Brad Binder, twelfth today.

Enea Bastianini, who will start from the front row, said immediately: “Unfortunately it rained but in the end it went quite well. We were lucky to put the slicks on at the right time. We're in pretty good shape for the race even if we still have to resolve something, we'll try to do it in the warm up, weather permitting.”