Ajo Motorsport’s Johann Zarco will start from pole position for the 15th time in his Moto2 career, going top spot early in the session with a time that could not be matched for the remainder of qualifying despite the best efforts of Tom Luthi and Franco Morbidelli.
The session was a very quiet one with just Axel Pons falling off his bike at Turn 12 eight minutes in. The early part of the session saw a battle between Zarco and Luthi for top spot with Zarco getting the upper hand. The French rider’s 1m34.879s, set on just his fifth tour, broke Pol Espargaro’s three-year-old lap record and put Zarco on pole for his final intermediate class appearance.
Behind, Luthi and Morbidelli tried their upmost, setting fastest sector after fastest sector, in their quest to depose the World Champion from provisional pole, but ultimately came up short. In the end, the top three were split by a miniscule half a tenth, setting up cracking encounter for tomorrow’s 27-lap season finale.
Mattia Pasini, despite riding with a fracture hand, managed to put his Italtrans machine at the head of the second row, with Pons’ Alex Rins finally finding some form on home soil in fifth. Julian Simon will start, what could potentially be, his final Grand Prix from a highly commendable sixth.
Sam Lowes looked like he was struggling a little bit out on track to find a rhythm and could only manage seventh for his final Moto2 race before stepping up to the premier class next year with Aprilia. He was just over a tenth of a second ahead of fellow Brit Danny Kent, who had an encouraging performance at the track where he sealed the Moto3 title last year. Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Marquez completed the top 10 while Jonas Folger had a slightly disappointing session in 11th.
