Moto3 Motegi, Qualifying: Pole Position for Danny Kent

Sun and temperature of 21° in the air and 22° on the asphalt at the Twin Ring in Motegi for the qualifying session of the Moto3 class AirAsia Grand Prix of Japan, the fourth to last stage of the 2012 world championship. All thirty-four riders on the track, including the two Japanese wild cards, Hyuga Watanabe #81 (Team Project U 7C Harc) and Yuudai Kamei #82 (18 Garage Racing Team), while we remember that the entire non-European hat-trick (Japan, Malaysia and Australia) will be missed by “Gigio” Morciano (Ioda Racing), who fractured the radius of his left arm in the Aragon tests.

The pole position went to Danny Kent, who mocked right under the checkered flag Maverick Vinales (FTR Honda Team Blusens Avintia), who took the lead a few seconds before the KTM rider. This is the first pole of the year for the British driver, for a front row that tomorrow will also include the world championship leader Sandra Cortese, who finished 298 thousandths behind his team-mate.

The Malaysian will open the second row instead Zulfahmi Khairuddin, KTM rider of Team AirAsia-Sic-Ajo. Together with him there will be ours Alessandro Tonucci, author of splendid qualifications aboard the FTR Honda. The Team Italia driver finished seven tenths from the top and tomorrow he will have the Spaniard Luis Salom, RW Racing GP driver, alongside him.

Difficult qualifications instead for Jonas Folger, who had a technical problem with his Team Aspar Kalex at both the start and end of the session. The German achieved the seventh fastest time ahead of the Frenchman Louis Rossi, the Spaniard Efren Vazquez and ours Roman Fenati, who after losing a good part of FP3 due to a crash managed to enter the Top Ten.

The other Italian drivers are Niccolo Antonelli, 12th with the FTR Honda of Team Gresini, Armando Pontone 33rd with Ioda and the returner Riccardo Moretti, 34th with Mahindra.