Moto3 Americas: Martin returns to pole with perfectly timed lap

Jorge Martin secured his first pole position of the season with his final run around Texas as he managed the wet conditions perfectly with his Del Conca Gresini team ahead of the Moto3 Grand Prix of the Americas, round three of the championship.

With heavy showers near the start of the session the early laps were in the 2m 30’s with Philipp Oettl the first to make the switch to slick tyres as the weather improved.

It was Honda rider Martin who had the best set-up and timing to get the most out of the session as he made his way over the track’s tricky undulations, setting his best of 2m 18.629s as the chequered flag waved. It marks a massive turnaround for the Spanish rider after his tyre change decision on the warm up lap in Argentina left him out of contention in the race before eventually finishing eleventh.

He is joined on the front row by championship leader and title rival Aron Canet, who was 0.496s behind Martin for his Estrella Galicia 0,0 team on the timesheets and British rider John McPhee.

McPhee, who has seen his season get off to a disappointing start and is yet to score a point, found himself with Tatsuki Suzuki for company as the lap times tumbled, the pair pushing each other to go faster around the lap, the man from Oban took the final podium spot, with the honour of being top KTM rider with the small CIP Green Power team.

Suzuki was just seven thousandths slower in fourth with SIC58 Squadra Corse. The Japanese rider will be joined on row two by Fabio Di Giannantonio on the second Gresini entry in fifth and Enea Bastianini who was briefly first with the lap that saw him finish sixth for Leopard, demonstrating how fast the times dropped in the final seconds.

Dennis Foggia rode bravely to be the top rookie in qualifying as he flew up to seventh for Sky Racing Team VR46 and was the last rider within a second of the pole time in the tricky conditions.

Ayumu Sasaki will start eighth after finding late improvements with Petronas Sprinta Racing, Argentina race winner Marco Bezzecchi lines up ninth for Redox PruestelGP, with another rookie, Jaume Masia, completing the top ten for Bester Capital Dubai.

Oettl, who lead the way in moving to slicks, had been on those tyres for the longest and a late tyre change for a new set of slicks saw him miss out on a lot of the competitive track time, leaving him a credible eleventh with his Sudmetal Schedl GP Racing team.