Britain’s Sam Lowes has taken a front-row start for tomorrow’s Phillip Island Moto2 race despite a big crash which saw him have to sit out the last quarter of qualifying.
Lowes put in a 1’32.787 on his seventh lap of the session which was just a quarter of a second slower than poleman Alex Rins and he was just beaten to second place by Axel Pons but the Speed Up man’s time was good enough for him to stay in third place after new world champion Johann Zarco had his final flying lap baulked by traffic.
Interwetten’s Thomas Luthi heads up the second row in a session that saw less than a second separate the top 17 riders. QMMF Racing Team’s Mika Kallio pulled off his best qualifying result since Indianapolis in fifth, while Idemitsu Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami carried his pace from practice to qualify in sixth. Ajo Motorsport’s freshly crowned Moto2 World Champion Zarco could only mange seventh on the grid as he put in his worst performance since the Indianapolis GP.
Sandro Cortese (Dynavolt Intact GP), Lorenzo Baldassarri (Forward Racing) and Julian Simon (QMMF Racing Team) completed the top ten while Franco Morbidelli (Italtrans Racing Team) will start from 19th in his return from injury.
