Sam Lowes captured a stunning pole position at the Aragon GP this afternoon by setting a new Moto2 lap record at the Motorland circuit.

The Marc VDS rider will command his first race of the 2020 season ahead of Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio Di Giannantonio with fellow Brit Jake Dixon celebrating an equally impressive session with a career-best fourth.

Enjoying the warmest conditions of the weekend so far - a positively tropical by comparison, 23℃ on track - Saturday’s intermediate qualifying got underway with Jorge Martin taking the Q1 holeshot, with a 1’52.630,  from Lorenzo Baldassari, Xavi Vierge and Hafizh Syahrin after the first set of flying laps registered. Tetsuta Nagashima and Simone Corsi joined the fray on their next attempts, with Syahrin improving his pace once again to hold on to the final promotion place in the opening minutes. Running strongly towards the end of the session, Thomas Luthi demoted the Malaysian out of Q2 contention with just two minutes to go, the remaining runners evidently unable to challenge the top-four as the flag came out.

Flying out of the blocks as the final session began, Di Giannantonio threw down the gauntlet once again with Martin and Lowes closely behind before Dixon, seeming to have fixed his Friday troubles, stormed to the top and into the 1’51 marker. Not one to be outdone so far this weekend, Di Giannantonio snapped back with his own ’51 effort on his third lap before Bezzecchi took the chance to counter a lap later by setting a 1’51.799.

Less than three minutes remaining and Lowes fired up his Marc VDS to set a staggering 1’51.651 to firmly stake his claim on pole position with a new all-time lap record, the move displacing Dixon from the front row and Luca Marini onto row three with little time for the field to take further action.

The chequered flag dropped with Lowes victorious, Bezzecchi and Di Giannantonio retaining their positions alongside the Brit on the front row while Dixon again competed a career-best qualifying to sit fourth ahead of Marcos Ramirez and Jorge Navarro. Marini will head row three on Sunday’s grid from Martin and Augusto Fernandez, with Remy Gardner, Joe Roberts and Enea Bastianini one row behind in 10th to 12th. Luthi, Nagashima and Hector Garzo claimed themselves row five starts as Edgar Pons, Bo Bendsneyder and Corsi complete the top-18.