Aron Canet heads into this afternoon’s qualifying for the Catalan Grand Prix as the man to beat, after the Spaniard pipped team-mate Enea Bastianini to top spot in final practice.
Estrella Galicia 0,0 Honda rider Canet will be keen for a repeat of his Jerez heroics in front of his home crowd this weekend in Barcelona, and will undoubtedly be a threat for pole come qualifying after setting a new lap record on the revised Catalunya track layout.
After a Safety Commission meeting for the MotoGP field concluded with agreement to return to the version of circuit used last year, the Moto3 field hammered in the laps in the early stages as they got a feel for the new layout.
As the final few minutes approached, the qualifying simulations began, and initially it was Bastianini who was fastest of all with a 1m53.998s – the first sub 1m54s lap of the revised layout.
The Italian looked to have secured top spot, but team-mate Canet fired in a 1m53.966s at the death to pip Bastianini by just 0.032s.
Championship leader Joan Mir completed the top three with a 1m54.035s, with Gresini’s Jorge Martin a couple of tenths adrift in fourth after mistakes on his final two flying laps saw his times cancelled.
John McPhee spent all of Friday working on his race set-up, but upped his pace this morning and managed the fifth best time of the session ahead of Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Niccolo Antonelli, who desperately needs a result this weekend after a dismal start to his 2017 campaign.
Romano Fenati was seventh quickest in third practice, with the returning Gabriel Rodrigo a respectable eighth on the first of the RBA KTMs. Nicolo Bulega headed Philipp Oettl in ninth, with Darry Binder, Fabio Di Giannantonio, Marco Bezzecchi, Bo Bendsneyder and late faller Juanfran Guevara completing the top 15.
