2017 Barcelona Moto2 Qualifying Result: Making A Statement From The Start

As if he was fearing that the tarmac might melt any second now, Alex Marquez went out the pits and posted the first and what proved to be one of only two laps into the 1:49s in the qualifying session. His rivals had to postpone their pool time while trying to catch up on a gap of over half a second. The mission was eventually unsuccessful, the Spaniard’s early time proving unbeatable, not even by Marquez himself, the Marc VDS rider taking a brilliant pole position in his backyard.

The only rider to get within half a second of Marquez was, once again, Mattia Pasini, the Italian continuing to show great form with a second place on the grid. The next challenger was an unlikely one but more along the lines of the expectations we had this season from Lorenzo Baldassarri, the Italian getting as close as six tenths of a second of Marquez and completing the front row.

Takaaki Nakagami came out of nowhere to snatch a second row start, while Thomas Luthi looked on course to challenge for the front row but was hindered by traffic on his final lap and had to settle for fifth place. With the momentum on the other side of the garage, Franco Morbidelli had his worst qualifying of the season, in sixth position, which isn’t too shabby really.

Miguel Oliveira will open the third row, accompanied by Jorge Navarro, who is quickly becoming a usual sight in the top ten, Axel Pons the next rider to complete the row three line-up.

Meanwhile, Pecco Bagnaia has a bit of a recovery job in his schedule for Sunday, the Italian only qualifying twentieth, one place ahead of Moto3 champ Brad Binder.

While his teammate scored a front row start, Luca Marini has been withdrawn from the race due to shoulder injury recovery following the crash he had in the morning session.

Results: