Fifth pole of the year for Zarco

Johann Zarco will start from pole position for the fifth time this year with the runaway Moto2 championship leader finding a different gear once again on Saturday afternoon. The Frenchman, who has been on the podium at every race bar the season opener in Qatar, finished the session a quarter of a second clear of Tito Rabat and Alex Rins.

The margin of Zarco in qualifying belies his race pace which hasn’t been a match for Rabat this weekend however when talking with MCN the Frenchman said that he found a setup that gave him plenty of confidence and that there was no single area that he would look to improve his feeling.

Further down the grid Sam Lowes will start from 13th on the grid after suffering a linkage failure on his first flying lap with the soft compound tyre. Having set his fastest time on the harder compound Lowes went out on the soft tyre and immediately felt a major improvement through the first series of corners but the failure robbed him of any chance of a better grid spot.