The conditions that greeted the Moto3 riders at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for their two Qualifying sessions could not have been much better for them. With warm temperatures and sunny skies, lap times improved with every minute run.

Although Veda Pratama (Honda Team Asia) was inside the top four places early on, it was Leopard Racing’s Guido Pini who topped the times at the end of Q1 and secured his place in Q2. He was joined by Casey O’Gorman (SIC58 Squadra Corse) who also made his way through the opening qualifying session with the fourth fastest time.

Unfortunately, Pratama could not quite match the pace of the top four and his fastest lap placed him seventh. Also in action in Q1, Nicola Carraro (Rivacold Snipers Team) was ninth, Zen Mitani (Honda Team Asia) was tenth and Leo Rammerstorfer (SIC58 Squadra Corse) was 11^th.

Leopard Racing’s Adrian Fernandez was the rider to watch in the opening minutes of the following qualifying session, briefly holding the top spot on the timing screens. It wasn’t long after this that he was displaced by another Honda rider: Rivacold Snipers Team’s Jesus Rios. At the end of the 15 minutes, it was Rios who was the highest placed Honda rider with the sixth fastest time. This was Rios’ career best qualifying result and will see him line up on the second row of the grid tomorrow.

Securing places on the row behind Rios, Joel Kelso (GRYD – MLav Racing) ended the session in eighth place, with Fernandez once place behind in ninth. O’Gorman, who ended up setting his lap times on a used tyre, was 12^th fastest, while Eddie O’Shea (GRYD – MLav Racing) and Guido Pini (Leopard Racing) were 16^th and 17^th respectively.

Tomorrow’s Moto3 race in Barcelona will be run over 18 laps and will get underway at 11am local time.