Franco Morbidelli displayed his championship credentials once again by taking pole position for the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello. The home favourite snatched pole away from his Marc VDS team-mate Alex Marquez who had dominated the entire session, pipping the Spaniard by three hundredths of a second on his final lap.
Marquez had made a blistering start to the session, clocking a 1:51.715 inside the opening ten minutes to go faster than Mattia Pasini’s free practice benchmark and open up a seven tenth advantage. Although Morbidelli and Pasini gradually closed the gap, pole position only looked to be heading one way, even when Franco’s last lap got underway.
At the third checkpoint, the championship leader still had three tenths to make up but crucially, Morbidelli was able to lock himself into the slipstream of Yonny Hernandez’s AGR Kalex, with the tow up to the finish line enough to overturn the deficit. As a result, Morbidelli took his third pole of the year with Marquez missing out by 0.036s.
Pasini was also within a tenth of pole position in third, backing up his outstanding practice form, while championship challenger Thomas Luthi will head the second row. Takaaki Nakagami lines up fifth with Luca Marini, another of the home favourites, starting on row two for the second race running in sixth.
Jorge Navarro produced the best performance of his rookie campaign so far in seventh, just ahead of Lorenzo Baldassarri while Miguel Oliveira put his KTM on the third row. His team-mate Brad Binder will start 24th on his return from injury.
Moto2 Gran Premio d’Italia Oakley – Qualifying Result
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