After an historical first-ever MotoGP™ event in India last week, the GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 team has now travelled to the Land of the Rising Sun, Japon, for round 14, the Japanese Grand Prix, held at the Mobility Resort Motegi, a 4.8km layout with fourteen corners, eight right and six left, and a particular demand for braking! Augusto Fernandez and Pol Espargaro will be both looking forward to this second stop of the oversea tour, one which they both enjoy a lot!
Rookie Augusto Fernandez will be eager to return on track this week in Motegi to continue demonstrating the progress he has made since the Misano Test, after leaving India with a bittersweet feeling. Indeed, the rookie was competitive last week, but a late yellow flag in Q1 saw his time which had sent him to Q2 being cancelled, a game changer. He did pretty well in the Tissot Sprint with an eleventh place, but he was forced to retire from Sunday's race following a technical issue, a very disappointing end to what had been a positive weekend. The Mobility Resort Motegi is a track he enjoys, having been on the podium last season in the intermediate category, so he will for sure be looking forward to trying it with the RC16 which was very competitive last year. Teammate Pol Espargaro is also back on a track that he particularly enjoys, and will be looking forward to milder track conditions, after the extreme ones endured last week in India. Eiherway, the number 44 managed to fight through them to bring his garage a P13, a great result after all the pain endured over the weekend.
Get ready for another packed-action weekend of MotoGP, with Augusto Fernandez and Pol Espargaro set to launch the Japanese party on Friday with Free Practice 1 at 10:45 (GMT+9), which will be followed in the afternoon by the sixty-minute-Practice. Japan will host its first Super Saturday, with the qualifying sessions from 10:50 LT, preceded by one final FP2 at 10:10. The Tissot Sprint will take place at 15:00 (GMT+9), for twelve laps. Finally, the lights of the 2023 Japanese Grand Prix editions will go out at 15:00 on Sunday, for twenty-four laps.
![](/images/2023/Portraits/Augusto-B-black-v3.png)
Championship: 14th
Points: 58
![](/images/2023/Portraits/Pol-B-black-v4.png)
Championship: 23rd
Points: 11
![](/images/Nicolas-noir.png)