The Moto3™ class was back in action on Friday morning for the third and final round of October’s blockbuster-tripleheader, the Grand Prix of Malaysia. Daniel Holgado and Jacob Roulstone faced a wet track in Free Practice after the heavy showers from overnight, before a dry afternoon session.

Thailand’s result was not exactly the expected one for Spaniard Daniel Holgado chasing the runner-up position, but his P12 from Buriram still allowed him to arrive at the Sepang International Circuit with the second position in the championship, with a reduced gap of 11 eleven points on rival Colin Veijer. In the morning’s Free Practice, Holgado rode 13 laps to accustom himself with the Malaysian layout. His best was a 2’27.322, a bit far from the fastest guys, but heading to the afternoon’s session with a good margin for improvement. Just after lunch time, the sun and the heat were definitively back in Sepang, with 33 degrees in the air, 48 on track, and a good percentage of humidity. Times went down fast for all, including Holgado with an early 2’12.519 that had him provisionally in P7 halfway through. As the pace continued to increase as we approached the end of the 40 minutes, Holgado’s late effort with a 2’12.004 got him the 7th time at the end of play, heading to Saturday with a provisional Q2 ticket to defend.

Jacob Roulstone’s learning in the wet continued on Friday morning in Malaysia after a stressful Thai Grand Prix for the rookie, which ended good, in the points. The Australian rode 12 laps in the opening session with a fastest lap in 2’26.589 heading to the afternoon’s Practice 1. The young number 12 continued the learning in the dry afternoon session, starting with 2’13.095 that had him close to the top 14 after the first twenty minutes. Roulstone appeared to feel pretty well on the bike, as he was able to improve to 2’12.165 on his final lap, a time that sees him end day 1 in P8, just behind teammate Holgado. The #12 will look to secure a direct Q2 ticket on Saturday morning when the action resumes at 8:40 local time (GMT+8).