David Almansa wins the Moto3 Qatar Grand Prix. He dominated the race, winning by 2.5 seconds over Adrián Fernández in second and Máximo Quiles in third. With a very spread-out race, Almansa took his fourth win of the year.
Quiles tops Friday Practice
Quiles was fastest on Friday ahead of the Liqui Moly Dynavolt Intact GP pair of Almansa and David Muñoz. The top 14 on day one were all covered by less than a second. As always, Moto3 started the weekend’s action off.
The morning session allows the riders to settle into the race weekend and prepare their bikes for the upcoming weekend. Quiles was fast straight away as he went 0.2 seconds clear of the rest of the field.
Even with the best pace and looking comfortable, Quiles crashed in Turn 9. This was the first of many crashes at this corner for Moto3 riders this weekend. Thankfully, he walked away from the incident and was back out for the afternoon session.
Sadly, the same could not be said for Matteo Bertelle, as he was ruled out with injury after a crash in the morning session.
As the evening session came around, all the riders headed out onto the circuit to fight for their spot in Q2. The top 14 riders from this session go straight through to the final part of qualifying the next day.
The drama started before the race even got underway. There was a close call between Joel Esteban and Rico Salmela. Luckily they both got away with this close contact.
Overall, the session was quiet as riders worked hard to set their lap times. Quiles topped the session. It was a disappointing result for Red Bull KTM Ajo as both of their riders, Álvaro Carpe and Brian Uriarte, did not make it through to Q2.
Practice Top 10:
P1: #28 Máximo Quiles
P2: #22 David Almansa
P3: #64 David Muñoz
P4: #13 Hakim Danish
P5: #9 Veda Pratama
P6: #27 Rico Salmela
P7: #66 Joel Kelso
P8: #31 Adrián Fernández
P9: #8 Eddie O’Shea
P10: #78 Joel Esteban
Quiles takes his sixth Pole
Quiles takes pole at the Qatar Grand Prix. This was his sixth pole position of the year. Joining him on the front row were Almansa and Uriarte, who came through from the Q1 session.
Q1
As the lights went out at the end of the pit lane, the riders headed out onto the track. With the track so long, riders were queuing to get into each other’s slipstream to improve their lap times.
Surprisingly, the session saw little drama, with riders working hard to set fast laps. Guido Pini was the fastest rider in the first runs. However, he could not improve on his time and lost out on the place into Q2. The riders that made it through to Q2 were: Uriarte, Zen Mitani, Carpe, and Casey O’Gorman.
Q2
As Q2 got underway, the top 18 fastest riders of the weekend were ready to battle it out for the top spot. The riders headed out under the floodlights.
Quiles was the fastest rider on the first run, nearly beating the all-time lap record. With Almansa and Carpe right behind him, everything was still to play for.
No one could beat Quiles’ time as he took pole. Almansa kept his second place on the grid, with Uriarte beating his teammate at the last moment of the session.
Qualifying Top 10:
P1: #28 Máximo Quiles
P2: #22 David Almansa
P3: #51 Brian Uriarte
P4: #83 Álvaro Carpe
P5: #64 David Muñoz
P6: #31 Adrián Fernández
P7: #13 Hakim Danish
P8: #9 Veda Pratama
P9: #19 Scott Ogden
P10: #27 Rico Salmela
Almansa dominates the Grand Prix
Almansa wins the Moto3 Qatar Grand Prix. The #22 won the race by 2.5 seconds over Fernández and Quiles. The race saw a very spread-out field with small groups battling for position.
As the lights went out, it was a great start for Almansa, who beat Quiles off the line and to the first corner. Quiles’ start went from bad to worse as Uriarte also got past him into turn one.
David Muñoz got stuck in early on making his aggressive moves as he usually does. This time he took out Uriarte. Luckily, the rookie managed to keep the bike going and get back into the race. Muñoz was given a long lap penalty for this incident.
After his long lap penalty, Muñoz got stuck back into the race. Turn 9 took another victim of Eddie O’Shea. He high-sided after being pushed out wide by Muñoz. This gave Muñoz another penalty, this time it was a double long lap.
Back out front, Quiles was pulling away from the rest of the field. With 10 laps to go, he had a 1.7-second gap over the rest. Even while pulling away, Quiles and Fernández were still close together and battling it out for the final podium places.
As the race went on, there was not much action to talk about. With three laps to go, Quiles made a mistake that sent him wide, handing second place to Fernández. This allowed Fernández to start pulling away.
Almansa was unstoppable, crossing the line with a three-second gap to take the victory. There was a last-lap battle for second, which Fernández eventually won by 0.07 seconds.
After being taken out earlier, Uriarte managed to get back into P14; allowing him to take the rookie of the year title.
Race Top 10:
P1: #22 David Almansa
P2: #31 Adrián Fernández
P3: #28 Máximo Quiles
P4: #9 Veda Pratama
P5: #83 Álvaro Carpe
P6: #66 Joel Kelso
P7: #13 Hakim Danish
P8: #64 David Muñoz
P9: #6 Ryusei Yamanaka
P10: #19 Scott Ogden
The riders have a week off now before they head to Portimão ahead of the Portuguese Grand Prix, 20-22 November.