Britain’s Sam Lowes has taken pole position for tomorrow’s Moto2 clash at the Jerez MotoGP round in an incredibly-tight session which saw the top four riders within a tenth and the top 20 separated by just a second.
Lowes kept an allocation of soft-compound Dunlops back for today’s final timed session and it paid off as he went out for his last run and set a 1’42.408 to edge Jonas Folger into second by 0.028s.
But the even better news for the Gresini Kalex rider is that championship challenger Alex Rins is on the third row and will have a game getting through the pack on lap one tomorrow, while Johann Zarco is mired down in 16th place.
Folger’s Dynavolt team-mate Sandro Cortese completed the front row with a lap on 0.003s slower than Folger while MarcVDS rider Franco Morbidello is in fourth and only 0.072s off the pace.
Thomas Luthi ended in fifth place with Lorenzo Baldassarri, who dislocated both shoulders at Qatar, in sixth place and 0.036s slower than the Swiss.
Rins is in seventh with Simone Corsi eighth, Alex Marquez finding some form in ninth and Louis Salom completing the top ten. Danny Kent ended in 15th place, one ahead of reigning champion Zarco, but is only three-quarters of a second slower than Lowes.