Sam Lowes bounced back from a crash early in the qualifying session to claim pole position for the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello. The Briton was in danger of sliding down the leaderboard after tumbling fifteen minutes in but after recovering his bike to the pits, Lowes returned to the track to hand Speed Up pole position on home soil.
After topping the practice times, Tito Rabat began the session as favourite for pole and the reigning champion hit the front after twelve minutes, pulling out a tenth of a second over Thomas Luthi. At this point, Lowes held the third spot on the front row of the grid but a fall at Materassi threatened to undo all of his hard work, especially when the Speed Up wouldn’t restart. Fortunately for Sam, he was able to recover his machine to a nearby service road and find his way back to the pitlane but in his absence, the picture up front had been altered.
The biggest change of all came midway through the session as the Swiss teammates at Interwetten worked in tandem. Thomas Luthi shaved a tenth off his best time to stay second but his compatriot Dominique Aegerter was buried in the slipstream of the no.12 Kalex and took full advantage, jumping up to provisional pole position.
With ten minutes to go, Lowes finally ventured back out of the pits and within two laps, the Lincolnshire man had stamped his authority on the session with a 1:51.514, three tenths quicker than Aegerter and enough for his second pole position in 2015.
Aegerter held onto second while the relentless Rabat regained third from Luthi on his last lap of the afternoon. Luis Salom finished a surprising fifth ahead of championship leader Johann Zarco and leading Italian Simone Corsi. Xavier Simeon will start eighth ahead of an off-form Alex Rins while Axel Pons lines up tenth despite a crash in qualifying.
MOTO2 GRAN PREMIO D’ITALIA TIM – QUALIFYING RESULT
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