Submitted by Zara Daniela on
A peculiar set of incidents at the exit of turn one started off the qualifying session for the intermediate class, both Tech 3 riders out of action temporarily. No such issues for Mattia Pasini, the Italian taking over top position on lap four and keeping it throughout the session, all coming down to the final ten minutes.
With numerous flashes red lighting up the timing screens on the final run, it came as quite the surprise that no one managed to actually go faster by the time the checkered flag came out. Pasini held on to a second consecutive pole position by only a thousandth of a second. The unlucky second-best rider was championship leader Franco Morbidelli, the Italian putting together a great last lap that was oh-so-close but not quite close enough.
The front row of the grid was completed by the second EG 0,0 Marc VDS rider, Alex Marquez benefiting from tagging along to his teammate on the last lap and coming in a tenth of a second short of pole.
Pecco Bagnaia was only one hundredths of a second away from a front row start but will instead have to share second row with Tom Luthi and a rapid and recently consistent Fabio Quartararo.
After showing promise throughout practice, Isaac Viñales sorted out a third row start in elite company - Miguel Oliveira eighth and Xavi Vierge ninth after his crew did a great job recovering from the unusual incident in turn one.
Fourth row sees Sandro Cortese ahead, followed by Jorge Navarro, whose splendid save mid-session could easily challenge Marc Marquez himself – if that rewarded points, the Spaniard would have been much higher than eleventh on the grid. Last man on the fourth row is Hafizh Syahrin in twelfth position, ahead of the likes of Nakagami, Aegerter, Corsi or Marini.
Results:
Pos. | Num. | Rider | Bike | Time | Gap 1st | Prev. |
1 | 54 | Mattia PASINI | Kalex | 1'29.394 | ||
2 | 21 | Franco MORBIDELLI | Kalex | 1'29.395 | 0.001 | 0.001 |
3 | 73 | Alex MARQUEZ | Kalex | 1'29.570 | 0.176 | 0.175 |
4 | 42 | Francesco BAGNAIA | Kalex | 1'29.581 | 0.187 | 0.011 |
5 | 12 | Thomas LUTHI | Kalex | 1'29.696 | 0.302 | 0.115 |
6 | 40 | Fabio QUARTARARO | Kalex | 1'29.855 | 0.461 | 0.159 |
7 | 32 | Isaac VIÑALES | Kalex | 1'29.868 | 0.474 | 0.013 |
8 | 44 | Miguel OLIVEIRA | KTM | 1'29.998 | 0.604 | 0.130 |
9 | 97 | Xavi VIERGE | Tech 3 | 1'30.097 | 0.703 | 0.099 |
10 | 11 | Sandro CORTESE | Suter | 1'30.101 | 0.707 | 0.004 |
11 | 9 | Jorge NAVARRO | Kalex | 1'30.116 | 0.722 | 0.015 |
12 | 55 | Hafizh SYAHRIN | Kalex | 1'30.148 | 0.754 | 0.032 |
13 | 30 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | Kalex | 1'30.175 | 0.781 | 0.027 |
14 | 77 | Dominique AEGERTER | Suter | 1'30.247 | 0.853 | 0.072 |
15 | 24 | Simone CORSI | Speed Up | 1'30.258 | 0.864 | 0.011 |
16 | 7 | Lorenzo BALDASSARRI | Kalex | 1'30.262 | 0.868 | 0.004 |
17 | 10 | Luca MARINI | Kalex | 1'30.276 | 0.882 | 0.014 |
18 | 41 | Brad BINDER | KTM | 1'30.286 | 0.892 | 0.010 |
19 | 49 | Axel PONS | Kalex | 1'30.294 | 0.900 | 0.008 |
20 | 27 | Iker LECUONA | Kalex | 1'30.347 | 0.953 | 0.053 |
21 | 45 | Tetsuta NAGASHIMA | Kalex | 1'30.363 | 0.969 | 0.016 |
22 | 5 | Andrea LOCATELLI | Kalex | 1'30.585 | 1.191 | 0.222 |
23 | 57 | Edgar PONS | Kalex | 1'30.591 | 1.197 | 0.006 |
24 | 19 | Xavier SIMEON | Kalex | 1'30.624 | 1.230 | 0.033 |
25 | 87 | Remy GARDNER | Tech 3 | 1'30.738 | 1.344 | 0.114 |
26 | 62 | Stefano MANZI | Kalex | 1'30.778 | 1.384 | 0.040 |
27 | 37 | Augusto FERNANDEZ | Speed Up | 1'30.960 | 1.566 | 0.182 |
28 | 20 | Joe ROBERTS | Kalex | 1'31.092 | 1.698 | 0.132 |
29 | 52 | Danny KENT | Suter | 1'31.293 | 1.899 | 0.201 |
30 | 6 | Tarran MACKENZIE | Suter | 1'31.807 | 2.413 | 0.514 |
31 | 2 | Jesko RAFFIN | Kalex | 1'31.825 | 2.431 | 0.018 |
32 | 89 | Khairul Idham PAWI | Kalex | 1'31.840 | 2.446 | 0.015 |