Thomas Luthi’s impressive late season form continued in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix with pole position at Phillip Island. The Swiss rider timed his burst to perfection in a session which saw the times tumble throughout as track conditions continued to improve. Championship rivals Johann Zarco and Alex Rins came unstuck, qualifying tenth and sixteenth respectively.
Heavy rain earlier in the afternoon left the circuit damp in places and it provided an opportunity for some unlikely pole position challengers. The biggest surprise of them all came from another Swiss rider as Jesko Raffin hit the front for the SAG team twelve minutes from time. His dream of a maiden pole was ended by Sandro Cortese with five minutes to go but there was still one more twist in the tail.
With a matter of seconds remaining, Luthi leapt to the top of the leaderboard with the only sub-1:34 lap while Mattia Pasini used the Interwetten rider’s slipstream to grab second, fractionally faster than Sam Lowes. Cortese and Raffin were relegated to fourth and fifth although the latter will still start from comfortably the highest grid position of his career.
Jonas Folger will line up sixth ahead of another of the day’s surprise packages, Xavi Vierge, while Lorenzo Baldassarri took eighth ahead of Franco Morbidelli whose weekend has been littered by crashes. Zarco also tumbled during the session, leaving him tenth, while Rins ran out of fuel on his last run, leaving him nailed down in sixteenth.
Moto2 Michelin Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix (Qualifying Result)
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