Moto3: Martin handed pole after Bulega excursion

Jorge Martin has inherited his third pole position of the 2017 Moto3 season after a brief off-track excursion for Nicolo Bulega saw the Italian demoted from first to second to give his Spanish title rival the top spot.

And with only a second covering the top 22 in the frantic rain-struck session, Martin says that it could well be key come tomorrow’s race – despite a difficult route to the result after he crashed out of this afternoon’s session.

“If I can be honest, this session has been a… disaster! Everything that could happen did happen, so even more so I can be happy with my pole position! I crashed out at the very beginning and I got really nervous, because I knew how important every lap was going to be, given that it was our first and only real session on the dry.

“I was struggling, but in the end I was able to get the confidence back and set some good lap-times. It’s good to have found the feeling with these conditions in such a short time, so I hope tomorrow we’ll be able to do a great race: from pole everything looks a lot different!”

Juanfran Guevara took an impressive front row start in third, with Romano Fenati, Albert Arenas and Niccolo Antonelli completing the second row.

Brit Danny Kent came home in tenth on his wildcard appearance on the Red Bull KTM Ajo machine, while championship contender John McPhee was left disappointed with his result in 25^th but confident that he’s got the pace to mix it up with the leaders come tomorrow’s race.