Ai Ogura denied at Phillip Island: tire pressure penalty and his confession about the wet conditions

Ai Ogura had finished the Phillip Island Sprint in sixth place and was pleased with his race. Then came the unwelcome news: race direction handed him an eight-second penalty for running the front tyre below the minimum permitted pressure.

The Trackhouse Aprilia rider therefore lost the four points he had earned on track, in an already challenging Saturday marked by wet qualifying and his own comments about how difficult it was to ride in those conditions.

The penalty pushed the Japanese rider well outside the points. With the revised standings, Brad Binder moves up to sixth, Jack Miller to seventh, Diogo Moreira to eighth, and Iker Lecuona inherits ninth place—the final points-scoring position in the Sprint.

It was another blow on a dismal day for Trackhouse: teammate Raul Fernandez retired from the Sprint with a fractured finger and was declared unfit for Sunday’s race, as we reported in Double blow for Aprilia as Fernandez also ruled out: how the Trackhouse rider is doing. Jorge Martin’s fracture was another setback for Aprilia on Saturday in Australia.

When he spoke to the media, Ogura was still unaware of the penalty, and his assessment of the Sprint was positive: "It wasn’t bad. Unfortunately, I couldn’t gain any positions after the start. My race pace was pretty good. I’m happy with how I rode."

His assessment of the wet qualifying session had been far more disappointing. Ogura finished Q2 in last place, 5.2 seconds off Marc Marquez’s fastest time. He had expected a poor result, but not by such a margin: "It went exactly as I expected. I knew I was very slow in the wet, but five seconds in qualifying is too much. There’s still the warm-up tomorrow". And if the Grand Prix is wet? "It’s impossible for me to do worse."

Asked about Dani Pedrosa, who struggled in the wet early in his career and began training on used tyres, Ogura acknowledged that he needs to tackle the problem: "I need to come up with a plan. I can’t keep going like this for my entire career."

With the prospect of a long race in the wet, the Japanese rider is under no illusions. Aprilia was strong at Phillip Island in the dry, but the rain remains a fundamental obstacle for him: "It’ll be like a training session. After four or five laps, everyone will definitely have passed me," he explained. His goal will be to stay as close as possible to the riders ahead, knowing it will be tough.

Sunday morning’s warm-up will be his final chance to build some confidence before a race that, for Ogura, could turn into a long learning session in the rain.

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