The Thai rider and his Japanese teammate set the pace on the opening day at the Red Bull Ring
It’s an Idemitsu Honda Team Asia 1-2 heading into qualifying day at the CryptoDATA Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich as Somkiat Chantra beat teammate Ai Ogura by 0.055s in FP2 to top the Moto2™ timesheets on Day 1. World Championship leader Augusto Fernandez (Red Bull KTM Ajo) was 0.311s off the pace in third.
Honda Team Asia turn up the wick in FP2
On his sixth flying lap of FP2, Ogura bettered Jake Dixon’s (Zinia GASGAS Aspar Team) FP1 time by 0.059s as Chantra and Alonso Lopez (CAG Speed Up) improved their Friday morning efforts inside the top five as the sun shone at the Red Bull Ring.
Chantra, with nine minutes to go, then climbed up to P1 to make it a Honda Team Asia 1-2. And on his next flying lap, the Thai star went 0.588s quicker than Ogura as plenty of improvements were being made across the board. Fernandez cut that advantage down to 0.323s before Ogura was just 0.055s off his teammate’s effort with four minutes left, with fourth place Dixon yet to improve on his 1:35.000 in FP1. But in the end, no one would be able to beat Chantra’s time.
How the top 10 look on Friday
Tony Arbolino (Elf Marc VDS Racing Team) grabbed P4 in the closing stages to sit behind the leading trio, both the Italian and fifth place Lopez demoted Dixon down to P6. Cameron Beaubier (American Racing) is seventh ahead of FP3 and it joined in the top 10 by Fermin Aldeguer (CAG Speed Up), Filip Salač (Gresini Racing Moto2™) and Jorge Navarro (Flexbox HP40).
Tune into Moto2™ FP3 at 10:55 local time (GMT+2) on Saturday morning.
Top 10:
1. Somkiat Chantra (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia) – 1:34.353
2. Ai Ogura (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia) + 0.055
3. Augusto Fernandez (Red Bull KTM Ajo) + 0.311
4. Tony Arbolino (Elf Marc VDS Racing Team) + 0.354
5. Alonso Lopez (CAG Speed Up) + 0.545
6. Jake Dixon (Zinia GASGAS Aspar Team) + 0.647
7. Cameron Beaubier (American Racing) + 0.669
8. Fermin Aldeguer (CAG Speed Up) + 0.734
9. Filip Salač (Gresini Racing Moto2) + 0.745
10. Jorge Navarro (Flexbox HP40) + 0.795