Sam Lowes will start his bid for a fourth win and fifth podium at his beloved Motorland Aragon from pole position, after the Elf Marc VDS rider dominated from the outset on Saturday.

Lowes secured his 16th career pole with only his second hot-lap of Q2, a perfectly executed 1’51.778 just half a second shy of his record-breaking overall best at the Spanish circuit. The Brit will head the Aragón grid for the third time in a row, after his dominating double run in 2020, and the fourth of his Moto2 career to date.

“I’m really happy to have taken pole position today,” Lowes admitted from Parc Fermé.

“It’s no secret I love this track and always enjoy riding here and it is nice to reward the team for all their hard work with a pole position. We improved the bike a lot from yesterday and in Q2 I was able to put together a nice lap.

“I feel good and now I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow. I feel like we can do a good job from the pole position and I’m very confident we will be fighting for another victory here.

“This weekend we have quite a soft rear tyre so I knew that the first one or two laps would be where the performance was and I knew that I couldn't improve after that so I came into the box. I thought '51.6, '51.7 could be pole after this morning - I did '52.0 but with a full tank, so with a bit hotter track, I thought something like that.

“I felt good, I was really happy with the way the bike's working, happy with the pace this morning, so yeah, we can be confident for tomorrow.”

The 30-year-old has KTM’s title challengers Remy Gardner and Raul Fernandez alongside on the front row for Sunday’s 21-lap battle, but with one protecting his championship lead and the other nursing an injury, does he see this as the prefect opportunity to strike for victory?

“Of course, Remy will probably be smart and he's done a great job till now but I'm sure if the win's there he'll also go for it,” Lowes explained. “Raul's not done many laps, he's a bit injured but like when you get into the race, like me last year in Portugal, you get into it and he'll still be fighting in his head for the championship so he is going to give it a go.

“Bezzecchi is also quick, Navarro is quick, my teammate's also fast. They've not done the best in qualifying so it will be interesting the first laps to see how the race pans out, but I have good pace, as good as anyone, so just get off the start, get my head down and see where we are at the end.”

This weekend sees Dunlop bring a softer rear tyre for the allocation. Lowes admits he wasn’t necessarily convinced on Friday but after a thorough analysis during FP3 it’s looking the likely choice.

“I think that yesterday I was not so sure,” he said. “This morning I used it all the session and at the end we were still relatively okay on the pace so I think everybody will choose it.

“The track's got a little bit better over the weekend and, yeah, I think it'll be the race tyre. It's maybe a little bit more on the limit than we would normally see in Moto2, the last laps could be moving a bit more than normal, but in the end is quite close to doing the distance and I think this will be the choice of everybody. So if everyone's in the same position is no problem.”