Before even looking at what happened in Jerez today and until Wednesday, it seems useful to summarize the latest driver changes and the latest team name changes in this category. what is the entrance Moto3™.
With the departures of Lorenzo Dalla Porta (Italtrans Racing Team), its former rival for the title, Aron Canet (Aspar Team) and Marcos Ramirez (American Racing) for Moto2, attention will be focused above all on gabriel rodrigo (Honda, Kömmerling Gresini Moto3), holder of official and unofficial records on the Andalusian track since last week.
The other headliners are named Jaume Masia now at Leopard Racing, the experienced John mcphee (Petronas Sprinta Racing) and the solid Albert Arenas (Aspar Team), Alonso Lopez (Sterilgarda Max Racing Team), the two holders of the SIC58 Squadra Corse, Niccolò Antonelli and Tatsuki Suzuki, as well as the duos of the Sky Racing Team VR46 and Rivacold Snipers Team teams, Celestino Vietti / Andrea Migno and Romano Fenati / Tony Arbolino. We will not forget either Sergio García (Estrella Galicia 0,0), Ai Ogura (Honda, Honda team Asia) as well as Raul Fernández et Kaito Toba at Red Bull KTM Ajo.
In this already busy panorama, we will have to observe the return of Moto2 from Khairul Idham Pawi (Petronas Sprinta Racing) in the category, as well as the arrival of the Red Bull KTM Tech3 team with Ayumu Sasaki et Deniz Öncü.
Finally, we will closely follow the first steps of the holders of the Carxpert Prüstel GP team, the Swiss Jason Dupasquier and the Belgian Barry Baltus, the latter, too young, being temporarily replaced by Dirk Geiger, but also Jeremy Alcove (Honda, Kömmerling Gresini Moto3), Carlos Tatay (Reale Avintia Arizona 77), reigning Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup Champion, Ryusei Yamanaka (Estrella Galicia 0,0), and Yuki Kunii (Honda Team Asia)
Note also that the Sterilgarda Max Racing team will use Husqvarna colors for the motorcycles of Alonso López and Romano Fenati.
The Jerez de la Frontera circuit on which these first official tests of 2020 are taking place has the following references:
Private test February 2020: 1'45.662 Gabriel Rodrigo (Honda, Kömmerling Gresini Moto3)
Record: 1'45.745 Gabriel Rodrigo 2019
Testing takes place from 10 a.m. to 18 p.m., according to the following schedule:
Wednesday 19 and Friday 21:
10.00-11.10 (Moto2)
11.20-12.30 (Moto3)
12.40-13.50 (Moto2)
14.00-15.10 (Moto3)
15.20-16.35 (Moto2)
16.45-18.00 (Moto3).
Thursday 20:
10.00-11.10 (Moto3)
11.20-12.30 (Moto2)
12.40-13.50 (Moto3)
14.00-15.10 (Moto2)
15.20-16.35 (Moto3)
16.45-18.00 (Moto2).
Conditions were good today in Jerez, with a maximum of 19° in the air and 26° on the ground, despite a cloudy sky and a slightly annoying wind in the afternoon.
Unlike the Moto2, the Moto3 proved to be more sensitive to the wind which rose over the hours on the Jerez de la Frontera circuit.
Thus, few drivers were able to improve their times during the last session, and the classification was therefore decided in the morning and early afternoon.
An element of which Sergio García (Honda, Estrella Galicia 0,0) performed very well by achieving the best time of the day, and even the new track record, in 1'45.485 from the first session, ahead of Gabriel Rodrigo (Honda, Kömmerling Gresini Moto3), holder of official and unofficial records on the Andalusian track.
John mcphee (Petronas Sprinta Racing), Jaume Masia (Leopard Racing) and Albert Arenas (Aspar Team) then completed the Top 5 of this first draft.
The second session was dominated by John McPhee before Ai Ogura (Honda, Honda team Asia), but if the Scot managed to improve his own time by 4 tenths, he was no faster than the morning benchmark.
The Japanese from Honda Team Asia provisionally won at the very end of the day, with an improvement of 8 tenths compared to his time in the morning... but remained a tenth slower compared to the intermediate session.
As a result, and this is undoubtedly a lesson that tomorrow's pilots will learn when conditions are expected to be similar; you should not count on the last session to improve!
Only Albert Arenas et Kaito Toba made a mistake today, the second quite spectacularly.
Ranking credit: MotoGP.com
