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The Moto2 qualifying session began with the Van Drenthe quickly drying out and the riders fooled into thinking that they would have a completely dry session, but that was not the case. With about 25 minutes left to go, the skies over Assen wept once again and forced the riders to the garage, waiting for the rain to stop with just a few left on the track trying to find a good setup in the event of a wet race.
But the rain did not stop and the valid times were the ones on the sheets in the few initial minutes on the dry track. Swiss rider Thomas Luthi rode his team Interwetten-Garage Plus Kalex powered by a Honda CBR600 engine to pole position with a time of 1’37”954, achieved with skill and a pinch of good timing, that is always handy at these levels.
For Thomas this is pole number two in this 2016 season and his fifth in Moto2, which shows just how comfortable the Swiss rider feels in this category where he has already won in Qatar at the beginning of the year.
Behind him Frenchman Zarco will start, this time unable to get the best of Luthi, and completing the front row will be another Swiss rider, Dominique Aegerter not even a half a second behind his compatriot on pole position.
The second row opens up with Sam Lowes, the Brit who will be testing a MotoGP bike in just a few days, who finished ahead of Franco Morbidelli who had a good fifth time. Behind Franco was Japanese rider Nakagami of team Asia Idemitsu who preceded Sandro Cortese in seventh.
Alex Rins will start from the eighth spot on the grid. The championship leader was unable to seize the right moment and perhaps did not expect it to start raining again. Another German, Jonas Folger, closes out the third row with the ninth best time. Tenth best time for Lorenzo Baldassarri and twelfth for Mattia Pasini with team Leopard’s Portuguese rookie in between them. With Simone Corsi in sixteenth and Luca Marini on the twenty-first spot on the grid, it looks like tomorrow will be a comeback race for the Italians.
