Moto3™ kicked off a busy day at the Mobility Resort Motegi with Red Bull GASGAS Tech3’s Daniel Holgado and Jacob Roulstone starting their day with a tricky Practice 2 on a wet track, before the qualifying sessions in the afternoon. Daniel Holgado qualified in 9th, while teammate Jacob Roulstone will take his sixteenth start in the lightweight class from P21.

The start to his Motul Grand Prix of Japan was rather average on Friday for Daniel Holgado, who struggled to find the right bike set up in yesterday’s tricky conditions. With a provisional Q2 place to defend in Practice 2, the Spaniard headed on a wet track, so times did not improve for most of the class. Dani’s thirteenth time of Friday turned out to be the one qualifying him directly to Q2. In the final qualifying stage, the track conditions were drying, so slightly better than in the morning. As the fight for pole position number 16 of the season started, Dani set a first lap in 1’59.010 in his first run. He chose to return to the pit box to his team, and made the choice to wait quite a while in the stands. That left him with just one last flying lap remaining in his second run. In his final efforts, he rode a 1’56.165, a lap that will see him start the Japanese Grand Prix from P9 on Sunday.

Friday was tricky too for rookie Jacob Roulstone who did not quite find that feeling in the mixed conditions, and this morning’s track did not help neither in his progression. Although the feeling improved in the wet, that did not allow the Australian to improve his lap times, and he finished 23rd in the combined practices, meaning that he was on the Q1 entry list. In qualifying, Roulstone continued to struggle to find the confidence. As he chose to do only one run, his penultimate lap in 1’57.282 turned out to be his fastest, one that will see him start the Motul Grand Prix of Japan from P21 on Sunday, as lights go out at 11:00 local time (GMT+8)!