Aragon Moto2: Early pace sees Lowes land pole position
Sam Lowes, who won from pole at both of the rounds held at MotorLand last year, will be hoping for a repeat performance after securing pole position again in a dominant showing ahead of the Moto2 Aragon Grand Prix, round thirteen of the championship.
The Elf Marc VDS Racing Team rider, echoing Darryn Binder’s performance in Moto3, showed his hand early when he set a then benchmark of 151.778s a new best for the class this weekend.
The British rider then sat in the pit with the lap holding firm. Lowes attempted to exit for a practice start, but with just ten seconds left on the clock he was too late and had to wheel his Kalex back to the pits.
It is the number 22’s fifth pole of the season after securing the first three and then more recently sitting at the head of the field in Austria.
Remy Gardner left it late to move up from 14th to second. The Red Bull KTM Ajo rider first went out on used tyres and then saw his change take a little longer than planned in the garage. Back on track a small wobble then saw his best performance elude him, but the Australian championship leader corrected himself to cut the deficit to Lowes down to just 0.279s on his final attempt.
The last slot on the front row went to a steely home performance from Gardner’s rookie team-mate and title rival - Raul Fernandez.
The Spaniard had earlier set the best time ahead of qualifying in FP3 against the odds. The Red Bull KTM Ajo rider has been riding after a procedure on his right hand, which he fractured while training on a bike between races.
Visibly in pain and holding his hand after the session, race distance will be an issue on Sunday but a well managed Q2 by team and rider saw him able to climb to third, despite hitting traffic on his final run.
Hector Garzo arrived in Q2 as the best of the Q1 graduates and kept the pace up, he finished the second qualifying session in fourth for Flexbox HP40.
Ai Ogura produced another strong rookie performance, chipping away at his time over the weekend, he briefly topped the timesheets before Lowes posted his best lap on his way to fifth for Idemitsu Honda Team Asia.
Albert Arenas posted his best grid positon since moving up to Moto2 in sixth for Aspar and was the top non-Kalex rider for Boscoscuro.
+Ego Speed Up rider Jorge Navarro was next quickest, also on a Boscoscuro in seventh. Fabio Di Giannantonio was eighth fastest for Federal Oil Gresini and only just quicker than Marco Bezzecchi (Sky Racing Team VR46), who spent much of his session shadowing Raul Fernandez.
Marcos Ramirez completed the top ten qualifiers for American Racing.
His improved run saw Aron Canet (Aspar) behind him in eleventh, with Augusto Fernandez (Elf Marc VDS) in twelfth and Xavi Vierge (Petronas Sprinta Racing) in thirteenth.
Fermin Aldeguer continues to make the most of his time at Speed Up. Still in for Yari Montella he moved straight into Q2 on his way to 17th on the grid.
John McPhee makes his debut in the class, sitting in for Jake Dixon who is once again enjoying a run out in MotoGP. Learning quickly, he finished just over a second off the Q1 pace to be 15th in the session - 29th on the grid.
Lorenzo Baldassarri continues his recovery from injury so is replaced by WSBK rider Manuel Gonzalez at MV Agusta Forward Racing, who starts 30th.
Aragon sees wildcards for Xavi Cardelus (Cerba Promoracing Team) and Piotr Biesiekirski (Pertamina Mandalika SAG Euvic) who will line up 31st and 32nd respectively.
