This weekend sees the Moto3 riders in action at the third round in a row, having previously visited Australia and Malaysia. Today’s Qualifying sessions took place under the floodlights of Lusail and saw Honda’s lightweight riders challenging for the top positions.

In the opening Q1 session it was a Honda lock-out of the top-four places early on, with Guido Pini (Leopard Racing), Casey O’Gorman (SIC58 Squadra Corse) and the Rivacold Snipers pairing of Jesus Rios and Kiattisak Singhapong all challenging for the promotion places. At the end of the 15 minutes it was Honda Team Asia’s Zen Mitani and O’Gorman that had done enough to progress, while Pini was fifth, Rios sixth, Singhapong seventh and SIC58 Squadra Corse’s Leo Rammerstorfer eighth.

Several Honda riders were quick to post times at the sharp end of the leaderboard once Q2 got underway, with Adrian Fernandez (Leopard Racing), Honda Team Asia’s Veda Pratama (who carries a six-place grid penalty for tomorrow’s race) and Mitani who all looked likely to challenge for the front row. Unfortunately, Mitani had his lap time deleted for exceeding track limits and could not find the pace again following this.

Both Fernandez and Pratama were on personal best laps on their final flying lap, and had set red sector times in sector 1, but found themselves within a large amount of traffic, which hampered their efforts. Fernandez ended the session as the top Honda rider, setting the sixth fastest time and securing a place on the second row of the grid for tomorrow’s race. Pratama ended the session in eighth place.

Also in action in Q2, the GRYD Racing riders of Joel Kelso and Eddie O’Shea were 14^th and 16^th respectively, while O’Gorman was 15^th and Mitani 17^th.

The Moto3 race in Qatar will be run over 16 laps of the Lusail International Circuit and will get underway at 4pm local time.