Moto2 Aragon: Oliveira on pole after lap cancellation confusion
Miguel Oliveira claimed his second pole for KTM in their debut Moto2 season, but it was not plain sailing ahead of the Aragon Grand Prix, with confusion over whether his pole time should stand.
The Portuguese rider initially had his lap stripped by race direction for exceeding track limits before they admitted their error in cancelling the wrong lap for the infringement and reinstated his best of 1m 53.736s.
Mattia Pasini finished a frustrating session thinking he had been elevated to first and was even handed the pole winners hat before the result was returned to Oliveira.
The Italtrans rider was still pleased with second fortune when after a session filled with gesturing, contact and crossed words after arguing with Sandro Cortese as he attempted to get a tow from his fellow Italian throughout, before running into the back of Edgar Pons, hitting his tyre.
They are joined on the front row by the injury-carrying Alex Marquez, who lead for much of the session for EG 0,0 Marc VDS.
His team-mate, championship leader Franco Morbidelli is one place behind in fourth, just holding off Simone Corsi, who put together a string of fast laps at the end to move up to fifth for Speed Up.
The final spot on row two went to top rookie Jorge Navarro after a spirited performance for Gresini.
CarXpert Interwetten’s Tom Luthi struggled to get in the top ten and only salvaged seventh at the close of the session, making it harder to reduce the championship deficit further from row three.
Sandro Cortese (Dynavolt Intact GP) never quite managed to get a clean tow from Pasini and finished the session ninth.
Taka Nakagami completed the top ten on tomorrows grid for Idemitsu.
Misano winner Dominique Aegerter (Kiefer Racing) was close on pace and will start eleventh.
Further down the order Steven Odendaal was the best of the rookies in 23rd for NTS, well ahead of Federico Fuligni (Forward Junior Team) who was 34th, just behind Brit Tarran Mackenzie for Kiefer.
