Saturday of the Japanese Grand Prix was marked by… rain. As expected, typhoon Nanmadol left its mark and ended up postponing the day's sessions and canceling FP3 MotoGP, for example. With the wet track, Miguel Oliveira secured 8th position on the starting grid.
In a day that promised to be full, as is natural on Saturdays of grand prix, the rain ended up completely changing the agenda in Motegi. In MotoGP, it all started with FP2, which had worse times than the first session, which took place on Friday and… without rain. But Miguel Oliveira proved once again that he is top with a wet track, as the rider from Almada occupied the Top 5 for most of the 45-minute session.
The Portuguese's best time was achieved in the final five minutes of FP2, when Miguel Oliveira, with medium tires at the front and soft at the back, recorded 1m55s428, 0s196 more than Marc Marquez, who reached the best time of FP2 with a time of 1m55s232.
With no driver improving his FP1 time, Hawk ended up reaching the desired QP2, since, in the first session, he had finished in ninth position with 1m44s743, 0s234 more than the best of the day, Jack Miller, with 1m44s509. To get an idea of the difficulty of this Saturday, the worst rider on Friday, the Japanese TakuyaTsuda, recorded a time of 1m46s718, that is, almost 9 seconds faster than Miguel Oliveira on Saturday.
The problem is that shortly afterwards the rain returned in force, specifically during QP2 of Moto2, with the session being interrupted with 9m37 to go. With the riders and teams in the pits, everyone patiently waited for Dorna’s final decision, which, about 1h40 later, decided to open the track again for the end of the session, at the same time announcing the cancellation of MotoGP FP3, but the completion of QP1 and QP2, which started about 1h05 minutes after the stipulated time.
In QP2, Miguel Oliveira reached the eighth position, after having suffered a fall in the final minutes in the third sector, precisely when, in the first two, he registered time for pole position. Hawk reached a time of 1m55m895, 0s681 more than Marc Marquez (1m55s214), who took pole again after about 1000 days (the last, curiously, was precisely in the 2019 Japan GP). If it wasn't for the crash, Miguel Oliveira would possibly fight for the first three places in the Japan GP, as the Portuguese is an excellent driver on a wet track…
With Miguel Oliveira in eighth position, the race has the following schedule for Sunday (of course, if the rain allows, although the forecasts are positive regarding the weather):
Sunday, 25th of September
Warm UP – 2:40 am to 3:00 am
Race – 07:00
