MotoGP Catalunya: Guevara controls Moto3’s Friday running

Valresa GasGas Aspar’s Izan Guevara made his intentions clear as preparations for the Moto3 CatalanGP got underway on Friday.

Having narrowly missed out on the Mugello victory, the young Spaniard dominated the action at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya from the outset, sitting top of the standings in both sessions, with a 1’48.675 the target overall. Red Bull KTM’s Daniel Holgado and Leopard’s Dennis Foggia completed the top three with less than three-tenths covering the trio after 80 minutes on track.

Moto3 kicked off with an extra VisionTrack machine on track as Syarifuddin Azman joined Scott Ogden and Josh Whatley at the Michael Laverty and Taylor Mackenzie fronted squad. David Salvador substituting once again with Sterilgarda Husqvarna, this time in place of Ayumu Sasaki and alongside John McPhee. Marcos Uriarte standing in for Alberto Surra after the Rivacold Snipers rider suffered a second injury of the season.

The action saw KTM head the opening times with Ajo rider Jaume Masia in charge from Tech3’s Deniz Öncü and teammate Holgado. Last weekend’s podium challengers Izan Guevara and Sergio Garcia joining the fight in first and fourth respectively next time around. Leopard’s Foggia and Tatsuki Suzuki circulated in fourth and fifth after five laps of the 4.6km layout, the pair rising two apiece as the session unfolded with just Guevara out front as the sole rider running 1’49 pace at the halfway stage.

McPhee promoted the Max machine to 14th on his seventh lap of the morning, 1.4s adrift. Ogden running 21st with Whatley 25th as the track calmed ahead of second runs.

Öncü joined Guevara under the 1’50 barrier as the final quarter of an hour counted down. The Aspar rider upping the pace with a 1’49.713 on his tenth