Takaaki Nakagami followed up his maiden Grand Prix victory at Assen three weeks ago with his first pole position for three years at the Sachsenring. The Japanese rider snatched top spot from reigning champion Johann Zarco in the dying seconds of a qualifying session that was short of incident and excitement until the dramatic finale.
The early pace was set by championship co-leader Alex Rins who set a 1:24.641 with his third lap of the afternoon but with the Spaniard failing to go any faster in the remainder of the session, his hopes of pole would fade. At the halfway mark, Zarco edged ahead by a tenth of a second and with other improvements few and far between, pole looked to heading to the Frenchman.
Nakagami would change that though with his very last lap of the session, not only beating Zarco’s benchmark but putting a quarter of a second into the Ajo rider. Johann held onto second while Rins, whose Paginas Amarillas Kalex was looking increasingly loose as the session progressed, rounded out the front row.
Speed Up’s Simone Corsi and Marc VDS’ Franco Morbidelli set mid-1:24 laps in the dying seconds to qualify fourth and fifth respectively while Sandro Cortese will lead the home challenge from sixth spot. Lorenzo Baldassarri starts seventh with Alex Marquez eighth, just in front of another home favourite, Marcel Schrotter.
The British riders endured a nightmare afternoon with championship contender Sam Lowes toiling to tenth after an early crash at the Omega curve while Danny Kent didn’t take any part in the session with a fractured rib ending his involvement in the weekend altogether.
Moto2 GoPro Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland (Qualifying Classification)
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