Almansa and Muñoz shine in Qatar’s darkness, securing first and second row
During qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix, both Moto3 riders of the LIQUI MOLY Dynavolt Intact GP team showed up on a high level of performance. David Almansa secured the second spot on the grid, while David Muñoz made a strong impression with a fifth-place finish in qualifying and secured a starting position on the second row of the grid.
For David Almansa, the start of the third-last race weekend of the season went smoothly. With a second-place finish in Friday afternoon’s Practice session, he immediately secured a spot in Q2. The 20-year-old Spaniard confirmed this result early Saturday afternoon with a second-place finish in FP2.
In qualifying, which took place after sunset already at dark, Almansa was once again the only challenger to the newly crowned world champion, Maximo Quiles. With two fast laps, Almansa narrowed the gap to his compatriot, who had set the fastest time early on, to just 0.155 seconds, and will thus start Sunday’s race from second place under the floodlights of the Lusail International Circuit.
David Muñoz, on the other hand, had an extremely painful start to the Grand Prix in the desert. In a serious highside crash during the first few minutes of Friday’s free practice, the 20-year-old fortunately sustained only bruises. However, these injuries did not prevent the tenacious fighter from Seville from shining just a few hours later in Practice session, where he finished third and thus made it straight into Q2.
Riding through the pain barrier, however, Muñoz confirmed his improving level of performance with a fifth-place finish in Free Practice 2. He also finished in the same position after the 15-minute qualifying session, which determined the best starting positions for the race. Muñoz will therefore start Sunday afternoon’s race from the second row of the grid.
The Moto3 class will race at the Qatar Grand Prix under floodlights, starting time on Sunday is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. local time, which is 2:00 p.m. CET.
Moto3™ Qualifying Results:
1 Maximo QUILES / SPA / CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar Team / KTM / 2´02.288
2 #22 David ALMANSA / SPA / LIQUI MOLY Dynavolt Intact GP / KTM / 2´02.443 +0.155
3 Brian URIARTE / SPA / Red Bull KTM Ajo / KTM /2´02.783 +0.495
…
5 #64 David MUÑOZ / SPA / LIQUI MOLY Dynavolt Intact GP / KTM / 2´02.968 +0.680
