The hunt for pole position at the German Grand Prix, the ninth round of the season, had the Moto2 riders pushing much harder compared with Friday, when they were all rather cautious, and in practice this morning, used primarily to fine-tune the bikes.
The Sachsenring is a narrow, short and twisting track where it is difficult to overtake, therefore starting from the front is fundamental, but Takaaki Nakagami knows all of this, so he decided to put the best time of 1’24”274 on the sheets, placing his number 30 team Asia Idemitsu Kalex on the pole for the first time this season with a perfect lap where he also exploited Spaniard Julian Simon’s slipstream.
The Japanese rider demonstrated once again that he is in the best form of all the riders in the category at the moment, but another rider who is not joking around is Frenchman and reigning champion, Johann Zarco, second today with a gap of a full two tenths behind the Japanese rider’s time. The Frenchman, fresh from signing his MotoGP contract with Tech3 for next year, would like to leave the category that christened him doubling the title he is currently defending.
The third best time when to Spaniard Alex Rins, more than three tenths behind Nakagami, held up by all the traffic on the track that slowed him down on his best lap. The team Paginas Amarillas rider wanted the front row and he got it. Tomorrow he will be in the battle for the win.
On the second row, we have Simone Corsi with his fuchsia coloured Speed Up, ahead of Franco Morbidelli on his Marc VDS Kalex. The two Italians are more than four tenths behind the top time and finishing out the same row is the first of the German troops, Sandro Cortese astride his team Dynavolt Kalex.
Lorenzo Baldassarri opens up the third row with a time of 1’24”845 and behind the number 7 bike will be Alex Marquez and Marcel Schrotter. Tenth time goes to Englishman Sam Lowes, struggling today, with his acrobatic riding style proving ineffective on the difficult downhill turns, all strung together. Sam also fell at the beginning of the session, but without suffering any injuries.
Twelfth best time goes to Swiss rider Thomas Luthi, who got caught in traffic, and fifteenth goes to Luca Marini for whom the German track is entirely new. Mattia Pasini finished with the twentieth time, whereas number 52, Danny Kent, did not participate in qualifying after not being cleared by the medical commission..