Sam Lowes bounced back from the disappointment of Le Mans by taking pole position for the Italian Grand Prix, his second in as many years at Mugello. The Briton, who lost the championship lead to Alex Rins in France, edged out Takaaki Nakagami to claim his sixth career pole with Rins suffering problems this time, crashing on his way to ninth on the grid.
Typically in Moto2, many of the quickest laps were set early in the session and Lorenzo Baldassarri made the brightest start of all, setting a 1:52.088 to sneak ahead of AGR’s Marcel Schrotter. Lowes soon got up to speed, moving up to second with his third lap of the afternoon but after regrouping in the garage, the Gresini rider became the first (and only) rider to break into the 1:51s, securing his third pole from six races in 2016.
With twelve minutes to go, Nakagami climbed up to second, just 0.047s adrift of Lowes but two other contenders for top spot saw their hopes disappear in the gravel late on. Simone Corsi was the first to fall, losing control of his Speed Up, the bike that holds the qualifying record at Mugello, with two minutes remaining. Shortly afterwards, Rins tumbled too, losing the front end of his Paginas Amarillas Kalex at turn two.
As a result, Nakagami and Baldassarri held onto their front row spots with Axel Pons edging out his teammate Schrotter to qualify fourth. Johann Zarco produced a late burst to climb onto the second row in sixth while Thomas Luthi will start seventh, just in front of Corsi and Rins.
Moto2 Gran Premio d’Italia TIM (Qualifying Classification)
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