The Avant Ajo MotoE rider qualifies on the fourth row of the grid for Round 3 of the 2021 FIM MotoE World Cup season.

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya held qualifying for the FIM MotoE World Cup for the first time in history on Saturday. Hikari Okubo continued making progress on what is also his first weekend with an electric motorcycle at the Barcelona track. The Avant Ajo MotoE rider secured a place on the fourth row of the grid for tomorrow’s race, with 11th position.

In the morning, Okubo took advantage of the final Free Practice session to continue gaining experience at the Catalan track. That work paid off, and the Japanese rider lowered his best time from Friday by almost a second, and at the end of FP3 was 9th with a time of 1:50.963 from nine laps completed.
In the afternoon, Okubo was the tenth rider to go out in E-Pole, following the order established by the combined

Free Practice standings. On his single-lap run, the Avant Ajo MotoE rookie achieved 11th position after stopping the clock at 1:51.455.

The third race of the FIM MotoE World Cup season will begin tomorrow at 4 PM local time, and will take place over 7 laps.

Results (E-Pole)
1. Eric Granado 1:50.446
2. Jordi Torres 1:50.517+0.071
3. Dominique Aegerter 1:50.719 +0.273
4. Miquel Pons 1:50.726 +0.280
5. Lukas Tulovic 1:50.722 +0.326
11. Hikari Okubo (Avant Ajo MotoE) 1:51.455 +1.009

78 HIKARI OKUBO

“It was a tough day. I had good cornering speed, but I lacked a little something on the straights. We must continue to make an effort in the future to improve our performance in qualifying. This is the first time I have raced here and I am still learning what the circuit is like. Nevertheless, we must not give up. Our goal is to have a good race and, if we are lucky, we can gain positions and get closer to the top. We will do our best to achieve that.”