2020 Austria Moto2 FP3 Result: Lowes Raises The Benchmark

Submitted by Zara Daniela on Sat, 2020-08-15 09:55

The clouds that threatened proceedings early in the day gave way to large patches of blue sky by the time the intermediate class joined an almost entirely dry track, offering an unexpected opportunity to change the hierarchy in the combined top 14. The early rush led to an impressive number of cancelled lap times due to exceeding track limits but riders were quick on the pace from Friday. Luca Marini was one of the first improvers and placed himself at the top of the timesheets early on, a place he kept until the final ten minutes, when Sam Lowes improved the fastest time of the weekend. The Marc VDS rider survived a late time attack to lead FP3 by seven hundredths of a second from Remy Gardner, while Marini dropped to third, the trio safely into Q2.

Enea Bastianini left it late to join the top 14 but when he did he went straight to fourth, ahead of rookie Aron Canet. Marco Bezzecchi was a late improver but did well in sixth position, followed by Xavi Vierge and Somkiat Chantra, who were less than three tenths off the lead. Tetsuta Nagashima had an eventful morning, with an early crash that left him with only 10 min of running at the end of the session, but it proved sufficient to secure a place in Q2. Tom Luthi finally found his way into the top ten of the session and 12th overall, while Jorge Navarro’s session ended nine minutes early with a high side at turn one but the Spaniard made it into Q2 unhurt.

Jorge Martin was one of the few riders who failed to go any faster than Friday but his top time was good enough for third on the combined timesheets, despite being outside of the top 20 in FP3. Similarly, Augusto Fernandez was tenth overall and Jake Dixon got lucky with a late laptime cancellation for Nicolo Bulega, which handed the final direct Q2 place to the Petronas rider. Despite being under four tenths of a second off the leader, Stefano Manzi and Joe Roberts missed out on the top 14, while Marcel Schrotter’s late crash also left him out in the cold of Q1.

Results:

Pos	No.	Rider	Bike	Time	Diff	Prev
1	22	Sam Lowes	Kalex	1'28.877
2	87	Remy Gardner	Kalex	1'28.950	0.073	0.073
3	10	Luca Marini	Kalex	1'29.020	0.143	0.070
4	33	Enea Bastianini	Kalex	1'29.038	0.161	0.018
5	44	Aron Canet	Speed Up	1'29.103	0.226	0.065
6	72	Marco Bezzecchi	Kalex	1'29.145	0.268	0.042
7	97	Xavi Vierge	Kalex	1'29.155	0.278	0.010
8	35	Somkiat Chantra	Kalex	1'29.171	0.294	0.016
9	45	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	1'29.187	0.310	0.016
10	12	Thomas Luthi	Kalex	1'29.188	0.311	0.001
11	9	Jorge Navarro	Speed Up	1'29.204	0.327	0.016
12	62	Stefano Manzi	MV Agusta	1'29.240	0.363	0.036
13	16	Joe Roberts	Kalex	1'29.245	0.368	0.005
14	23	Marcel Schrotter	Kalex	1'29.297	0.420	0.052
15	96	Jake Dixon	Kalex	1'29.342	0.465	0.045
16	11	Nicolò Bulega	Kalex	1'29.377	0.500	0.035
17	37	Augusto Fernandez	Kalex	1'29.379	0.502	0.002
18	40	Hector Garzo	Kalex	1'29.402	0.525	0.023
19	7	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	1'29.475	0.598	0.073
20	55	Hafizh Syahrin	Speed Up	1'29.554	0.677	0.079
21	88	Jorge Martin	Kalex	1'29.566	0.689	0.012
22	42	Marcos Ramirez	Kalex	1'29.615	0.738	0.049
23	21	Fabio Di Giannantonio	Speed Up	1'29.855	0.978	0.240
24	77	Dominique Aegerter	NTS	1'29.908	1.031	0.053
25	19	Lorenzo Dalla Porta	Kalex	1'29.913	1.036	0.005
26	64	Bo Bendsneyder	NTS	1'30.060	1.183	0.147
27	27	Andi Farid Izdihar	Kalex	1'30.080	1.203	0.020
28	24	Simone Corsi	MV Agusta	1'30.511	1.634	0.431
29	99	Kasma Daniel	Kalex	1'30.655	1.778	0.144
30	57	Edgar Pons	Kalex	1'30.786	1.909	0.131