Moto2 Silverstone: Pole hat-trick for Pasini
Mattia Pasini took charge of the Silverstone circuit with untouchable, near lap record pace, helping him to pole ahead of the Moto2 British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
The Italtrans riders best of 2m 06.572 was 0.222s ahead of his nearest rival in the session Alex Marquez, who looked to have the form around the famous track based on his consistent practice performance, though his best early lap was lost after exceeding the track limits.
He was happy with his race pace, as was his EG 0,0 Marc VDS team-mate Franco Morbidelli, who completes the front row and will be looking to extend his championship lead from third.
Idemitsu’s Taka Nakagami made late improvements to leap up to fourth, while Luca Marini eased into fifth for Forward Racing.
They are joined on row two by Dominique Aegerter, the top Suter rider on the grid with Kiefer Racing.
Lorenzo Baldassarri did enough to pull the second Forward entry up to seventh, with Miguel Oliveira a solid eighth for Red Bull KTM Ajo.
Last years race winner Tom Luthi will be hoping for a repeat performance in tomorrows race - after starting tenth on the way to victory in 2016 he has left himself everything to do again, after struggling to a marginally higher ninth in qualifying on his Interwetten machine.
Simone Corsi completes the top ten for Speed Up.
Pecco BAgnaia (Sky Racing VR46) won the battle of the rookies in eleventh, just one place ahead of Gresini’s Jorge Navarro.
Alex De Angelis returns to the paddock, replacing the injured Xavier Simeon at Tasca Racing. He starts 24th. Similarly, over at Dynavolt Intact GP British Superbike rider Jake Dixon sits in for Marcel Shrotter who remains absent, the ‘local’ rider secured 30th.
Tarran Mackenzie missed the fifteen minutes of the session with a bike issue before heading out to track at his home race for Kiefer. His familiarity with the track helped him to 27th, just once place short of equalling his best qualifying performance to date.
