Gearbox change costs Kent dearly in qualifying

Moto3 championship leader Danny Kent needs to finish 14th to wrap up the title but today in Valencia he had his worst qualifying effort of the season. A change of gearboxes prior to the session saw Kent struggle for top speed and eventually finish 18th fastest.

Making the change prior to qualifying was a risky move for Kent and it backfired on the Leopard Racing star. With the bike hitting the limiter in sixth gear Kent felt that he was losing four tenths of a second per lap from the issue.

“We made a gearbox change from the rest of the weekend and we were hitting the limiter more or less everywhere on the track,” said Kent. “Maybe we were losing 0.4 easily just where we were hitting the limiter as everyone else’s bikes just kept pulling. It’s a little bit frustrating, we haven’t got the best of feelings with the bike.

“We just have to look at the data, work hard and try and make a change in a different direction to see if we can make that one step faster. It’s not a massive drama, we put some good sectors together. One lap I’d be fast in T1 and then the next it’d be T2 so for sure my ideal is a faster than the time we did.”

Top speed is such a concern for Kent that he felt making the change before qualifying was a risk worth taking. Weighing more than the rest of his rivals and being so much taller means that he has been consistently fighting a battle in Moto3 against lighter riders who can sometimes gain 5kmp/h on a straight.

“It’s difficult for us because everyone else is 10kg lighter so we’re just trying to find that little bit more speed. In Malaysia our bike was a lot longer than most people’s and we weren’t able to pass anyone so we were just trying something else.”

Valencia is the fourth and final opportunity for Kent to win the championship but he disputed any question about her was feeling the pressure from the moment at hand. “I wouldn’t say there’s pressure here at all. I felt a lot more pressure in previous races than I do now. It’s just the lap times after very close around this track but it’s not too bad passing around here. There are a lot of braking points. The way the track is laid out there are probably only three or four passing places but there are enough places to get past.”

Kent’s title rival, Miguel Oliveira, will start on the second row. The Ajo KTM rider needs to win the race to have a chance of winning the title.