Kent Leads Tight Title Decider Practice

Nov 6, 2015
2 min read

Championship leader Danny Kent showed strong pace as he set the quickest time in Friday practice at Valencia.

The British rider could seal the title on Sunday if he finishes in the top 14, set his best time of 1m39.930s lap in the first session as most riders failed to improve in the second practice. Meanwhile, his championship rival Miguel Oliveira was seventh but was less than two tenths off Kent's time. The Portuguese rider heads into the weekend with an outside chance of the title but, having won three out of the last five races, Oliviera has closed the gap to Kent to just 24 points and anything is possible on Sunday.

Isaac Vinales was second quickest ahead of Kent's two teammates Hiroki Ono and Efren Vazquez. The leading four riders were separated by just one tenth of a second as it promises to be another closely fought Moto3 qualifying and race with just one second covering the leading 26 riders. Jorge Navarro was fifth quickest with Enea Bastianini in sixth just ahead of Oliveira.

Niccolo Antonelli ended the day in eighth and Romano Fenati ninth, whilst there was an impressive display from wildcard rider Niccolo Bulega as he managed to be tenth quickest overall in Friday practice.

After the session, Oliviera and Kent were both in confident mood ahead of the season finale and title decider. Speaking to motogp.com, Kent described his day as positive: "Of course I'll sleep well this night as we finished day one as the fastest rider but we need to do some work for tomorrow in order to improve and solve some problems with which we struggled a bit today. However, we're happy with today and how things went so far...I'm quite confident to be on the right way already".

Meanwhile, Oliveira was just as optimistic after a better second session: "In the afternoon I was much higher up on the timesheets than in the morning. I felt comfortable with used tyres and everything went well. Finishing fourth in FP2 is not ideal, but we are a tenth off first place so I can't complain too much."

The duo will be battling it out for the title on Sunday where Oliveira has to win to have a chance of stealing the championship from Kent's grasp as well as the bragging rights as they become teammates at Leopard Racing in Moto2 next season.

Combined Moto3 Friday Practice Top 10:

1st - Danny KENT, 1m39.930s

2nd - Isaac VINALES, 1m39.966s

3rd - Hiroki ONO, 1m40.015s

4th - Efren VAZQUEZ, 1m40.023s

5th - Jorge NAVARRO, 1m40.061s

6th - Enea BASTIANINI, 1m40.104s

7th - Miguel OLIVEIRA, 1m40.110s

8th - Niccolo ANTONELLI, 1m40.158s

9th - Romano FENATI, 1m40.262s

10th - Niccolo BULEGA, 1m40.275s

Full practice times available here.