Sergio Garcia remains the Moto2 man of the hour! After his second win of the season in Le Mans, the world championship leader has now secured his first pole position in the middle class in the Barcelona qualifying. Fermin Aldeguer, in second place, is already two and a half tenths behind him. The injured Celestino Vietti and Aron Canet delivered strong performances with starting positions three and four.
This is how the Moto2 qualifying went:
Senna Aguis secured the best time in Q1, he was the fastest Moto2 rider of the session with a time of 1:42.608 minutes. Aron Canet finished in second place with a time of 0.274 seconds, closely followed by Celestino Vietti. Fourth place and thus the last place in Q2 went to ex-MotoGP rider Darryn Binder. The South African beat local hero Marcos Ramirez by three thousandths and Jorge Navarro by 0.012 seconds. Moto3 newcomers Diogo Moreira, Ayumu Sasaki, Deniz Öncü, Mario Aji and world champion Jaume Masia all took places 10 to 14.
Q2 and thus the battle for pole position began with a benchmark from world championship leader Sergio Garcia, who took the lead in 1:41.894 minutes. An absolute lap record, which immediately gave him a half-second lead over the rest of the field. The MT Helmets driver was initially unable to improve further, allowing Vietti to get within 0.288 seconds. Fermin Aldeguer moved up to third place, closely followed by Albert Arenas and Alonso Lopez.
Just in time for the halfway point of the session, the entire Moto2 field that had qualified for Q2 returned to the pit lane, where fresh rubber was fitted to the bikes. With just under five minutes to go, the riders gradually returned to the track. It was Joe Roberts who made the first attempt to beat Garcia’s best time. However, the American failed clearly and could not get past eighth place, 0.6 seconds behind.
The remaining Moto2 riders also fought it out against Garcia until the end. Aldeguer came closest on the last lap, but as the new second he was still 0.240 seconds behind his fellow Moto2 rider. Canet improved to fourth place, Manuel Gonzalez to seventh.
Nothing happened at the front, however, meaning Garcia secured the first Moto2 pole position of his career in Barcelona. Lopez and Vietti completed the first row, followed by Canet and the two Gresini riders Albert Arenas and Gonzalez. Substitute rider Daniel Munoz confirmed his strong impression this weekend with seventh place on the grid, with big names like Lopez (8th), Roberts (9th), Ai Ogura (10th) and Jake Dixon (11th) right behind him. Tony Arbolino only managed 14th place on the grid, Binder was 18th and last.
Falls and incidents:
No crashes or incidents in the Moto2 qualifying in Barcelona.