Indianapolis Moto3: Pole for Rins as Salom crashes
By Lisa Lewis
Alex Rins took his fourth pole position of the season for the Estrella Galicia 0,0 team in a session which saw the first sub-1m 48s times set by the Moto3 class at The Brickyard.
Rins demolished the new lap record set in Friday's practice to lead the way with a new best time of 1m 47.392s. The Spaniard's two wins this season both came from pole starts, at Austin and the last round in Germany.
He is joined on the front row by his team-mate Alex Marquez, who claimed his second front row start with a time just 0.294 seconds behind Rins.
Maverick Vinales starts third for Team Calvo, making an all KTM front row. He will be looking to take advantage of Luis Salom placing down the grid in tenth after a fall at turn one.
Championship leader Salom, who took his first grand prix win in last year's Indianapolis race, had a dramatic fall halfway through the session - a highside flicking him over his Red Bull KTM. The Spaniard crawled away from harm and was stretchered away.
Injury would lead to massive implications for the championship battle - Salom and Vinales have scored consistently, both having made the podium at every round so far, but Salom returned to the pits to continue and rejoined the session and improved his time.
The second row is headed up by Mahindra rider Efran Vazquez in fourth. He is joined by Jack Miller who stalked Vinales in the closing minutes in a bid for a competitive time, much to the Spaniards annoyance, and was once again the top Honda in qualifying, placing his Caretta Technology machine in fifth.
Fellow Australian Arthur Sissis placed just behind in sixth and was the highest placing Red Bull KTM Ajo team rider.
Jonas Folger matched his worst qualifying performance so far this year with a seventh on the grid for Mapfre Aspar.
Mahindra have both their machines inside the top ten with Portuguese rider Miguel Oliveira taking eighth spot.
Zulfahmi Khairuddin set a good enough pace for his first top ten start of the season for the Red Bull KTM Ajo team, in ninth.
Rookie Livio Loi just missed out on a top ten start and is in eleventh on the grid for Marc VDS.
British rider John McPhee placed his Caretta Technology-RTG machine in 30th.
Danny Webb's replacement at Ambrogio, Jules Danilo, takes the final spot on the grid.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
