Ayumu Sasaki took an extraordinary pole position for Round 7 of the 2023 Moto3 World Championship season, going more than a second faster than his rivals en route to a huge new lap record.

Having teased an immense result right at the start of the German Moto3 race weekend by setting a new record out of the box in FP1, Sasaki proceeded to obliterate his own best in the final seconds of qualifying.

Indeed, despite a lack of dry running in a wet FP2 and FP3 session, Sasaki went straight to the top early on with a 1m 25.963 - which alone would have been good enough for pole - before joining the swarming pack to tow him along to a superb 1m 25.130secs effort.

It was enough to earn him pole by almost +1.1s, a huge margin he holds over Deniz Oncu, a rider who'd impressed by taking pole in Mugello a week earlier by more than half a second.

Joining the Japanese and the Turk on the front row will be Ivan Ortola, the COTA and Jerez race winner just a slither behind Oncu.

Fresh from a big personal best finish of sixth at Mugello, Sasaki's Husqvarna IntactGP team-mate Colin Veijer has now scored a major new qualifying benchmark for himself as he heads up row two in fourth, while David Munoz on his return to action was fifth and title contender Jaume Masia sixth.

Championship leader Daniel Holgado, meanwhile, finds himself on the back foot down in seventh, where he shares the third row with Kaito Toba and Diogo Moreira.

Among the Brits, Joshua Whatley gets underway in 26th on the grid, while Scott Ogden brings up the rear of the 30-strong grid after a spectacular over the handlebars high-side early on in Q1 at Turn 3 sidelined him for the remainder of the session.

German Moto3, Sachsenring | Qualifying Results