The Avant Ajo MotoE rider will take off from eleventh at the sixth round of the FIM MotoE World Cup

Hikari Okubo took part in Free Practice and qualifying for the sixth and final round of the season on Friday at Misano. After fighting to make it directly into Q1, he will finally start from the fourth row of the grid, in eleventh position.

The Japanese rider began the first Free Practice of the weekend with a solid result. The Avant Ajo MotoE rider had a good feeling from the get-go, and remained in the top positions throughout the session. With a time of 1:45.091, achieved on his penultimate lap of nine, he finished in third position.

Okubo’s goal in the second and final Free Practice was to qualify directly for Q2. Whilst he would finish tenth with a 1:44.585, he was forced to go into Q1. In Q1, he showed a great pace and was one of the frontrunners. The Avant Ajo MotoE rider eventually occupied third in the session thanks to a 1:44.403, earning him eleventh on the grid.

The first MotoE race will be held on Saturday at 4:25 PM local time at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli.

Results (Qualifying session)
1. Dominique Aegerter 1:43.174
2. Mattia Casadei 1:43:415 +0.241
3. Jordi Torres 1:43.442 +0.268
4. Eric Granado 1:43.451 +0.277
5. Matteo Ferrari 1:43.652 +0.478
11. Hikari Okubo (Avant Ajo) 1:44.403 (Q1 time)

#78 HIKARI OKUBO

“It was not an easy day. I had a crash in FP2 and my lap was cancelled, so I had to go through Q1. It was not our goal as we wanted to make it into Q2 to get a good position on the grid. I’m not entirely happy with how the day went and tomorrow we’ll have to move up a lot of positions to get a good result, but we’ll give it our all in the last two races of the season.”