Espargaro: Right decision… The front wheel was floating!

Aleix Espargaro praised MotoGP's Race Direction for listening to the riders and cancelling qualifying at Phillip Island.

Strong gusts of wind plagued the Saturday action in Australia, intensifying in the afternoon.

Miguel Oliveira then suffered a big accident when he was blown off track on the approach to turn one in FP4, prompting the session to be halted and a Safety Commission meeting called with the riders.

Almost all the competitors felt it was unsafe to continue and Race Direction duly announced that cancellation of any further Saturday MotoGP action. Qualifying is now due to be held after warm-up on Sunday.

"Obviously the right decision, almost everybody agreed that today was very, very dangerous to ride," Espargaro said. "The wind speed was very high and it was not constant, so it was very difficult to predict.

"We were 19-3 [in favour of stopping]. Those three riders said that it was in the limit, limit, limit and maybe there would be no way to race with 20 riders together, but yes to the qualifying.

"But the other 19, we thought there was no way.

"For me, I was behind Oliveira when he crashed. He did everything perfect at corner one but a lot of wind arrived, hit him and a big crash. So I think we took a good decision.

"We were 19 against 3 so I'm very happy and proud of this sport because they really listen to us. Our opinion is very important and I'm very happy."

Espargaro also described why the gusts of wind were so terrifying.

"Corners 1 and especially 3 were super-difficult. The feeling was that we were turning with one wheel, just the rear wheel. The front wheel was floating, so it was very dangerous!"

The Aprilia rider has already secured direct access to Qualifying 2 courtesy of being tenth fastest on Friday.