Gaviota GASGAS Aspar rider achieves his best grid position of the season and will start the Thai Grand Prix from fourth place. David Alonso will begin from fourth row

Deniz Öncü will start the Thai Grand Prix from pole position. The Turkish has been the fastest rider in a very close session and will lead the front row of the grid for the third time this season. Öncü has begun the day by beating the track record by more than a tenth and has arrived to qualifying as the favourite to take pole position. The Turkish has suffered a small contact with another rider at the beginning of the session, but he has been able to recover the lost time and has achieved his goal. Diogo Moreira and Ayumu Sasaki have finished behind Öncü, both less than 0.058 off the best time. The Japanese rider will have a great opportunity tomorrow to take over the first place in the standings, as leader Jaume Masià will start the race from seventh position, while the other title contender, Dani Holgado, will start from eleventh place.

Gaviota GASGAS Aspar rider Ryusei Yamanaka has taken in Thailand his best grid position of the season and has ended just one tenth off starting from the front row. The Japanese has shown his full potential today in Buriram and will begin Sunday's race from fourth place. In the morning, Yamanaka had ridden under the track record and has gone straight into Q2 with the third fastest time in the combined timesheets. In qualifying, the Japanese rider has been in the front positions throughout the session and tomorrow he will fight to get his first podium of the year. His teammate David Alonso has also made it through Q2 on his debut in Thailand. The Colombian has demonstrated again that he is a quick learner on unknown tracks for him and will start the race from twelfth place. Alonso had the speed to start from a better grid position, but the yellow flags have prevented him from improving his lap times and he has had to settle with the fourth row. Despite this, the Colombian knows that he has a chance to fight with the front group and beat José Antonio Rueda in the battle to be rookie of the year.

4th Ryusei Yamanaka 1:42.225 (+0.164): “I am very happy with my grid position because we will have more chances to fight for the podium. We have found the way to improve the set-up of the bike and my riding. In qualifying, I was coming very fast on the second lap, but I have exceeded the track limits and I have had to brake. In the final part I have tried to push again, but I have crashed. Tomorrow we will have a great opportunity to fight with the best and we will give our all.”

12th David Alonso 1:42.585 (+0.524): “In qualifying I have gone out on new tyres and I have achieved my time riding on my own, so we are ready for the race. With the second set of tyres, I had some riders in front of me and I was improving, but the yellow flags on track have prevented me from getting a better lap. Tomorrow we will start from the fourth row and we will try to fight for a good result.”