Baldassarri dupes Marquez winning for just 71 thousandths, conquering the first pole in his career here at the Circuit of Jerez. The World Champion Bagnaia gets the last position in the front row.
A Qualifying round characterized by many crashes, especially in the last few minutes. Lorenzo Baldassarri took the lead winning over Alex Marquez for just 71 thousandths and gaining the first pole position of his career. Francesco Bagnaia will start from the 3rd place on the grid. In the top 10 also rookie Romano Fenati, 9th but closely followed by Mattia Pasini: as usual, time gaps are extremely narrow as 20 pilots reached the finish line in the space of 1 second. The Moto2 race will kick off tomorrow at 12.20 PM on the Andalusian track.
The round started with Marquez, Baldassarri, and Bagnaia fighting for the leading positions, but we soon witness the first fall by Odendaal (his second crash today) followed right after by Granado’s one. Lowes wasn’t luckier, making his best lap time when he fell. The same happened to his teammate Lecuona and then to Pasini (who slipped twice today). Navarro was 4th in the ranking when he had an accident in the last few minutes. Oliveira lost his occasion of improvement, as he was 10th but slipped just before the end. Wild card Cardelus, Garzo, and Fuligni didn’t do any better, all having to end their Qualifying prematurely. As strange as it might sound, all these accidents (with the exception of Pasini’s crashes, at the beginning of the circuit) happened between Turn 8 and 9.
Marquez and Baldassarri engaged the final battle for the first position on the starting grid, and we can say they have definitely been the leading characters in this Qualifying: eventually, it was the Pons HP4O team’s rider who won the pole position ahead of the Catalan rider, while the World Championship leader Bagnaia gained the last position in the first row. Navarro remained 4th followed by Binder and rookie Mir; following in the ranking are Xavi Vierge, 7th ahead of Lowes and rookie Fenati, with Pasini closing the top 10. Here the other Italian riders’ positions: Luca Marini finished 12th ahead of Simone Corsi, Andrea Locatelli 20th, Stefano Manzi 22nd, and Federico Fuligni 32nd.
The ranking
