Diogo Moreira surprised in the first free practice at Motegi, with Guevara seventh

the brazilian Diogo Moreira (KTM) “attacked” the lead on the first day of Moto3 Japanese Grand Prix practice at the Motegi “Twin Ring” circuit on his last lap, beating Italian Dennis Foggia (Honda) and local idol Ayumu Sasaki (KTM).

The leader of the world championship, Izan Guevara (GasGas) finished in seventh position.

With just one practice session, after two years without riding the Motegi “Twin Ring” circuit and with the certainty that at some point today it might start to rain on the Japanese track, the Moto3 riders were the first jump onto the track and they do it in a hurry to quickly find a good classification or rather thinking that the second round of free practice on Saturday will be rained out, which will leave the passing of the classifications sentenced .

Among those “wickers”, the first leader of the session was Jaume Masiá (KTM), who signed fast laps on his second and third lapschased by local Ayumu Sasaki (Husqvarna) and Italian Dennis Foggia (Honda), while another local rider, Tatsuki Suzuki (Honda) had problems keeping track and was about to star in first accident of the day.

Sasaki improved his partials as the laps went by and by the fourth lap he was four thousandths of a second behind Masiá, eager to be “a prophet in his land” on his return to the track owned by Honda two years after the last occasion, as a result of the global pandemic of Covid-19.

But Masiá’s pace was the most consistent and rising and in the fifth lap he again lowered his personal best (1:58.069)to defend the leadership of the session, while the Japanese Taiyo Furusato (Honda) was the first “victim” of the Japanese track when he crashed at turn five, the entrance curve in the first tunnel of the “Twin Ring”, although the Spaniard saw that the canceled that record for exceeding track limits a few minutes later, leaving the situation as it was.

With Masiá in the lead and Sasaki following, third in contention is Turkish Deniz Öncü (KTM)while the world championship leader, Izan Guevara (GasGas) was sixth, seven tenths of a second behind his compatriot and with his teammate and one of the main rivals in the race for the Moto3 title in 2022, Sergio García Dols, in tenth position.

The situation soon changed with Izan Guevara, who was on this difficult track for the first time, because on his ninth lap he rolled a 1:57.664 and took the lead by almost four tenths of a second ahead of the Italian Riccardo Rossi (Honda ) and more than four with respect to the Japanese Ryusei Yamanaka (KTM), who was third, although the last two were knocked out for a while by Tatsuki Suzuki.

In the final minutes a good match was established between Ayumu Sasaki and Izan Guevarawith a positive starting balance for the Japanese, who lapped at 1:57.493 and beat the Spaniard by 171 thousandths of a second, although the last lap of the session would once again be decisive in the classification order.

In that final match, Tatsuki Suzuki also intervened, putting him in his compatriot’s shoesOnly 117 thousandths of a second, but the British John McPhee (Husqvarna) relegated him to third place with all the drivers shooting their best split, which made it possible to predict a final which changes the order of arrival.

And so it was, because the Brazilian Diogo Moreira (KTM), who also set foot on the Japanese track for the first time, took the lead, 1:57.252followed at 195 thousandths of a second by Dennis Foggia, with Ayumu Sasaki in third place, while John McPhee was overtaken by Spaniard David Muñoz (KTM), and behind him were Tatsuki Suzuki and Izan Guevara, with Deniz Öncü (KTM ) in eleventh position, Adrián Fernández (KTM), thirteenth, ahead of Jaume Masiá, Xavier Artigas (CFMoto), Daniel Holgado (KTM) and Sergio García Dols.

Ivan Ortolá KTM) finished in nineteenth position, with Carlos Tatay (CFMoto) twenty-third and Ana Carrasco (KTM) in twenty-ninth position.