“Sprint” race in Malaysia

Friday, October 24th

The Malaysian weekend gets off to a strong start for the Snipers Team, with both riders immediately showing their potential in the opening minutes of Free Practice 1, consistently staying within the top 15.
Great start for Riccardo Rossi, who showed a good feeling with the bike and an effective setup right from the first laps. In the final moments of the session, he managed a time attack worthy of the top 3, ending with an impressive 4th place and confirming strong competitiveness for the rest of the weekend.
Encouraging pace also from Nicola Carraro, who, despite finishing slightly further down the standings, kept a small gap from the front runners, a clear sign of solid potential to unlock in the upcoming sessions.

Friday afternoon’s Practice sessions kicked off with a delay of around 35 minutes due to oil left on the track by a bike from another category. This made the start of the session particularly tricky, especially with the looming threat of rain.
The Snipers Team's strategy was clear from the beginning: push hard in the opening minutes to secure strong time attacks in case the weather worsened. It was the right call, with both riders immediately starring in the early laps, Carraro and Rossi quickly moved into the top 10, holding solid positions for most of the session.
Luckily, the rain held off, but the second half of the session became more challenging due to heavy traffic on track, which limited the chances to improve after the tyre change. Despite that, the lap times and small gaps from the front runners confirmed the strong pace of both riders, leaving positive signs heading into Saturday’s qualifying.

Saturday, October 25th

Saturday kicks off with ideal conditions for the Moto3 riders: the track is completely dry and the temperatures are milder thanks to overcast skies, creating the perfect environment to improve lap times compared to Friday.
Riccardo Rossi immediately confirms the positive feeling from the previous days, quickly finding his rhythm and setting a fast lap close to the top times of the session. Nicola Carraro takes a few more laps to get comfortable with the bike, but once he finds his pace, he clocks a solid time in the final minutes, finishing the session just ahead of his teammate.
Both riders end FP2 with small gaps from the top of the standings, confirming steady progress ahead of the afternoon qualifying session.

Qualifying proved challenging due to heavy traffic throughout the 15-minute session, caused by the specific layout of the Sepang circuit: its two long straights led all riders to constantly seek a slipstream, creating abnormal slowdowns during every time attack.
Both Carraro and Rossi struggled to complete clean laps, as they consistently found themselves forced to back off in key moments. Additionally, the track’s length limited strategic options, within such a short session, riders could only attempt 3 to 4 flying laps, including the out-lap, making a tire change virtually impossible.
Despite narrowly missing out on Q2, both Snipers riders have shown greater potential throughout the weekend, leaving encouraging signs ahead of Sunday’s race.

Sunday, October 26th

A serious crash during the warm-up lap, which did not involve the Snipers riders, caused a long delay to the start of the Grand Prix, with lights going out nearly two hours later than scheduled. As a result, the race was shortened from 15 to 10 laps, making it crucial to start with the right pace immediately.

From the very first lap, Nicola Carraro showed great speed, gaining three positions and quickly joining the leading group. Riccardo Rossi, starting further back, responded with an equally strong comeback, moving up four places on the opening lap.
Throughout the race, Carraro remained steadily in the front pack, skillfully managing the close battles and the typical “accordion effect” of the Malaysian circuit. Rossi, slightly further behind, fought hard to close in on the points, alternating overtakes and strong defense all the way to the finish.

In the end, Nicola Carraro crossed the line in 14th, securing more valuable points after a solid performance and recovering five positions. Riccardo Rossi finished just outside the points, affected by the shortened race distance, but showed encouraging signs of progress heading into the final stretch of the season.

Comments

Nicola Carraro reflects on the race, curious about the condition of his fellow riders after the incident:
"I don’t have any information about the two riders involved in the crash during the warm-up lap — I just really hope they’re okay and that we’ll hear something soon. As for the race, it was really tough because of the heat. I couldn’t capitalize on my speed in qualifying, so I had to push hard from the start, but towards the end I could feel the tyre wearing out quickly. Now we take this week off and then I’ll give it my all in Portugal to find a solid pace right from Free Practice.”

Riccardo Rossi sums up his weekend:
"Like Nico said, I really hope the guys involved in the incident are doing well — it looked like a heavy crash. It was quite a strange weekend overall. We started off really strong, but the race turned out to be quite complicated. Qualifying made the difference — not being able to pull off a time attack to get into Q2 really affected the outcome. During the long runs on Saturday morning I had a solid pace and felt competitive all weekend. In the race I managed to recover some positions, but the group split early and I couldn’t take advantage of my pace because of the constant battles within the pack. We know we can aim higher, and today’s result isn’t what we were hoping for.”