Aragon Moto3: Fernandez masters MotorLand for pole
Raul Fernandez looked supremely confident with his best lap under his belt as he remained unchallenged in the closing stages of qualifying to keep pole position for the Moto3 Aragon Grand Prix.
With no team-mate to work with in Q2, the Spaniard secured a home pole by working alone, on his best lap he ran solo until he caught a group of riders with Jaume Masia at the tail.
The Red Bull KTM Ajo rider moved past them one by one and still lowered his best to 1m 57.681s.
He then spent much of the remaining time sat confidently in the garage with his helmet off, only returning to track to be ready in case of a late attack on his lap and to complete a practice start.
French Grand Prix winner Celestino Vietti came closest to bettering the pole time, but fell just short when finding Tatsuki Suzuki on track became more of a hindrance than the slipstream he’d been hoping for. The Sky Racing VR46 rider came across the line 0.059s short.
The final spot on the all KTM front row went to championship leader Albert Arenas, who left it late to climb the timesheets and move himself away from the danger of a mid-pack start for Solunion Aspar.
Alonso Lopez and Romano Fenati were the team-mates working best together, the Sterilgarda Max Racing pair taking turns to slipsteam off of each other.
Lopez placed his Husqvarna two places higher than Fenati in fourth, but faces an in-race long lap penalty for his part in the duo’s crash in Le Mans, which he had already run rehearsals for in FP3.
They are split on the second row by top Honda rider Suzuki, after the SIC 58 Squadra Corse man gained a good run to the line after running with Vietti.
Rookie Carlos Tatay moved through Q1 with Ayumu Sasaki (Red Bull KTM Tech 3) after the pair opted to co-operate with each other. The Reale Avintia rider secured seventh on the grid at the track where he secured his first front row start last year. Sasaki fared less well, leaving it late to set a good lap in Q2 and ending his session 18th.
Ai Ogura (Honda Team Asia) will sit in eighth, Q1 graduate Gabriel Rodrigo (Kommerling Gresini) secured ninth, while John McPhee, after a slow last lap to prevent anyone slipstreaming him out of contention, also came through the first qualifying session on his way to tenth for Petronas Sprinta Racing.
Darryn Binder (CIP Green Power), the race winner in Catalunya, was close behind on the timesheets and will start eleventh.
Andrea Migno suffered without as much help from his Sky Racing team-mate on track, his time was only good enough for 13th.
Jaume Masia claimed pole last week in Le Mans but could not match that feat this weekend, the Leopard rider spent much of Q2 with no lap banker to his name and struggled with traffic as the clock ticked down, leaving him 17th.
Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Kaito Toba was the man who missed out on moving up to Q2, his time fell just short so he will be 19th overall.
Lining up next to him will be Leopard’s Dennis Foggia - a podium finisher at MotorLand last season.
Title hopeful Tony Arbolino was forced to miss Aragon to meet quarantine rules after testing negative for Coronavirus but travelling on the same plane as a positive case.
