Kent crashes but still claims pole

A crash with 15 minutes remaining wasn’t enough to derail Danny Kent in qualifying with the championship leader taking pole by a comfortable half a second at Sachsenring. Kent had a low side at Turn 10 and tangled with another rider but having dominated proceedings all weekend he was left to sit in his garage and watch his rivals fail to get close to his time.

Enea Bastianini, Kent’s closest challenger in the championship, set the second fastest time to vault from the midpack in the final seconds of the session. Karel Hanika, who qualified on the second row in Germany 12 months ago, will line up on the outside of the front row.