Canet and Holgado first pole men of the Pirelli era in Moto2™ and Moto3™

Riders Aron Canet (Fantic Racing – Kalex) in Moto2™ and Daniel Holgado (Red Bull GASGAS Tech3) in Moto3™ are the first pole men in Pirelli history for the world intermediate and lightweight categories. 
The two Spanish riders also set the new all time lap records for their respective categories: Canet, with a time of 1’56.788 in Q2, beat the previous record set by Joe Roberts in 2023 by more than half a second, whereas Holgado took pole position on the sixth lap with a time of 2’02.276, beating the record set by Darryn Binder in 2021 by almost 2 seconds.

Record laps and all compounds in play for the race
 
“The feedback received so far from the riders is positive, which confirms that the allocation designated for this year seems to be correct. In the case of Moto3™, there is clear evidence from the new all time lap records which were already set in free practice on Friday and then broken again in qualifying. In Moto2™, the improvement took a bit more time and the lap record was only broken in qualifying. Considering the characteristics of the bikes, the teams and riders need to get used to the new tyres and it will take them a few GP races to do so because it is a significant change with respect to the past. As for the races tomorrow, making predictions on tyre choices is hard. In free practice and in Practice 2, wear was good on all the compounds for both categories, but no riders did race simulations or significant long runs. The biggest unknown is the temperature. Practice 1 on Friday - the only one that could have significantly simulated race conditions - wasn’t held due to the rain, so we don’t have any certain data to go on. In qualifying today, we say that when the sun goes down, asphalt temperatures can drop as much as 20°C compared with the daytime sessions and, in these conditions, the harder solutions could be a safer bet in terms of wear to favour lasting race distance. Each team has done their own work and they have the information from the Portimão and Jerez tests, so they’ll be able to make their own assessments. In the meantime, we had good news from the Asia Talent Cup, where they use the SC2 on both the front and the rear. Today’s race time was 21 seconds faster than in 2023.”

· The rain that fell during the night between Friday and Saturday did not have a negative impact on the track and all the riders continued to progressively improve their lap times from yesterday.
 
· The Moto3™ qualifiers were held with air temperatures of about 24°C and asphalt temps between 31°C and 34°C, whereas Moto2™ qualifying was held with 23°C air temperature and 29°C asphalt temperature.
 
· In Moto2™, Canet took pole position towards the end of the session, suing the SC1 compound on both the front and the rear. Alonso Lopez (Synk SpeedUp – Boscoscuro), second in the rankings, and Albert Arenas (QJMOTOR Gresini Moto2™ - Kalex), third, also chose the SC1 on the front, but they used the softer SC0 at the rear. The top five riders all dropped their times below the all time lap record Roberts had set in 2023.
 
· In Moto3™ Q2, all 18 riders participating lapped faster than the previous track record. To take pole position, Holgado used the SC2 compound at the front and the SC1 at the rear. In general, the compound used the most by the riders on their flying laps was the soft SC1.