The Spanish rider pulls off a great lap to secure his second consecutive direct spot fighting for the Pole Position. Pawelec places 27th.

Jose Antonio Rueda once again secured direct entry to Q2 in the dying moments of the Japanese GP Practice session. After using Free Practice 1 to adapt to the bike and the circuit, the Spaniard took a significant step forward in the final part of the afternoon session, finishing 13th. Stand-in teammate Milan Pawelec finished 27th in both sessions, showing good progress in his debut with the team and at Motegi.

Amidst somewhat chilly temperatures and uncertainty regarding potential light rain, the Moto2 riders headed out onto the track with 19ºC in the air. Surprisingly, several riders managed to break the circuit record during the closing stages of the session.

Rueda’s adaptation was gradual; he started out in 26th place, stringing together lap after lap to familiarise himself with the Moto2 bike at a circuit with which he only has experience in Moto3. After an initial time that left him provisionally more than two seconds off the pace, Rueda fine-tuned his setup during a pit stop. From there, he took a significant step forward, improving his best lap three times to eventually clock a 1:48.810, placing him 21st -just 1.2 seconds behind the fastest rider. Having completed 17 laps, Rueda finished FP1 with a positive feeling. Pawelec headed out slightly later than his teammate, aiming to ride alone and adapt to both the bike and the Japanese circuit. After a very cautious opening stint that saw him more than four seconds off the lead, the two-time European Moto2 champion gradually picked up the pace before pitting. Receiving initial feedback from Veijer’s crew, he went back out and lowered his time to 1:49.754, finishing less than two-tenths of a second behind the rider in the penultimate position and just over two seconds off the new circuit record. He placed 27th after completing 17 laps.

In the afternoon, conditions for Practice improved slightly, with 35°C track temperature. However, following more than ten crashes in the preceding Moto3 session, the intermediate class riders took a somewhat conservative approach.

Rueda began by working on his race pace for Sunday, coming very close to matching his best morning time during the first run of the afternoon session. Sitting provisionally in 25th place but only 1.3 seconds off the fastest time, he waited for the Time Attack phase to try and make another leap up the order. For the second round in a row, the Spaniard surprised everyone with a great lap in the closing stages that secured him a spot in Q2. Clocking the 13th-fastest time of the session, Rueda posted a 1:48.118, finishing just 6 tenths of a second off the fastest lap. Pawelec continued to make the most of his track time, focusing the entire session on adjusting his bike setup for Sunday. Like his teammate, he split his run into two parts, completing a total of 17 laps and finishing with a time similar to his morning run: 1:49.894. Placing 27th overall, the Polish rider will have to go through Q1, where he will aim to continue learning and understanding the World Championship-spec Kalex, as well as the Japanese circuit -one of the most unique tracks on the calendar.

In conclusion, it was a Friday of learning for the Red Bull KTM Ajo Moto2 team, which brings the first day at Motegi to a close with both riders feeling well and with more progression to come. Free Practice 2 takes place on Saturday at 9:25 a.m. (hora local). Then, Pawelec will participate in Q1 from 1:40 p.m., whilst Rueda will go straight into Q2 from 2:05 p.m.

Practice Results
1. David Alonso (Kalex) | 1:47.508
2. Manuel Gonzalez (Kalex) | 1:47.541 (+0.033)
3. Izan Guevara (Boscoscuro) | 1:47.568 (+0.060)
4. Tony Arbolino (Kalex) | 1:47.601 (+0.093)
5. Daniel Holgado (Kalex) | 1:47.659 (+0.151)
13. Jose Antonio Rueda (Red Bull KTM Ajo) | 1:48.118 (+0.610)
27. Milan Pawelec (Red Bull KTM Ajo) | 1:49.894 (+2.386)

#98 JOSE ANTONIO RUEDA

“It was a positive day, especially towards the end. We struggled a bit more than expected in the morning, but fortunately, we managed to turn things around in the afternoon. I knew I needed to shave a significant amount of time off my best lap, and for that, I needed a reference point; I was able to head out with a group during the final run, which helped me a great deal. Overall, I’m happy, though we still have a lot of work ahead of us, as there are many areas where we need to learn and improve. We’ve obviously taken a step forward, but we need to be more consistent, so we’ll have to address that tomorrow if we want to be competitive on Sunday.”

#40 MILAN PAWELEC

“I’m very happy with the work that we’ve done. It’s been great with the people from the team, as everyone is very kind and they help me a lot. In general, today was not an easy day for us on track. We started improving lap by lap during FP1 and were checking where the limits were, so it went quite well there. Then, in Practice, we tried to improve in different areas, but it was a little bit harder than I’ve expected. The average lap time was better than in the morning, but I couldn’t improve my best lap, so we need to find some more speed tomorrow. We will try to keep the progress going during the second day here and get closer and closer to the front. I need a little bit more time to adapt to the bike, as well as to the circuit, so we’ll try to do that on Saturday.”