Grid penalty for Kent in Moto3

Tomorrow marks the third opportunity that Danny Kent has had to win the Moto3 world title. He needs to finish in the top five to claim the title but starting from ninth on the grid after being penalised three grid places, for the second race in a row, will make things more difficult for the championship leader tomorrow.

Kent spoke after qualifying explained the frustration of having riders trail him around and look for a tow. Having dived into the pitlane to try and lose the train of riders behind him Kent explained how frustrating the session had been:

“In general it was a frustrating qualifying today. A lot of riders tried to follow me even when I entered the pit lane to try to come away from them all, but my strategy didn’t work out. It’s even more frustrating as Efren, my teammate seemed like he wouldn’t get away from me as he was always around. The most important thing is that we’re ready for tomorrow’s race thanks to a fast and consistent pace.”

With a top five finish clinching the title Kent outlined the task ahead of him tomorrow while making clear that despite his qualifying performance he still has plenty of confidence in being able to win the title tomorrow.

“It’s quite hard to plan out the race. Oliviera needs to take more risks. I can finish fifth, even if he wins the race. In think that there’s five or six riders that have the pace to lead this race and if I need to sit at the back of that group to take the championship than that’s what I’ll do. We’ve got the pace, we’ve been strong all weekend and were fastest in FP1 and FP3, the bike feels good so we’ve got the pace to be in that front group.”

Kent’s title rival Miguel Oliviera will start from the front row and afterwards the Portuguese rider saying:

“The QP today went quite well. I had a really bad last stint, because as I was first from the early stages, everyone wanted to catch a tow from me,” said Oliviera. “I had my good lap from the first stint in the bag, so I could play around with things. I’m happy with the result, although I think at this circuit it is not as important to start from the front row. However, this will help us to get away from traffic on the early laps, even though I think the race will be in a group. Tomorrow in the race it will be important not to make mistakes, have fun and deal with the heat as best we can to try to get on the podium.”