Jorge Martin rounded off the season with his ninth pole position of the campaign with a dominant display in Valencia. The Spaniard outpaced newly crowned champion Joan Mir by four tenths of a second as he goes in search of his maiden Grand Prix victory tomorrow.
With Martin sitting out the early stages of the session, a phoney war took place with Gabriel Rodrigo making the early running, clocking a 1:39.332. Shortly before the halfway stage though, the Gresini rider finally got himself up to speed and with his first representative lap of the afternoon, chopped eight tenths of a second off Rodrigo’s benchmark, moving pole position immediately out of reach.
Although Mir and Rodrigo broke into the 1:38s in the dying seconds, Martin still had more time in reserve and his 1:38.428 saw him smash the pole position record, beating Mir by just under half a second. Rodrigo was a tenth further back in third with Tatsuki Suzuki bouncing back from his horrendous Sepang highside with a career-best fourth on the grid.
The Estrella Galicia Hondas of Enea Bastianini and Aron Canet will line up fifth and sixth respectively ahead of Ayumu Sasaki, another Japanese rider to take his career-best qualifying result in seventh. Marcos Ramirez starts eighth ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio with Bo Bendsneyder rounding out the top ten.
Tomorrow’s race will not include Nicolo Bulega after the Sky VR46 rider was involved in an accident with compatriot Niccolo Antonelli in FP2 which left him with a broken ankle.
Moto3 Gran Premio Motul de la Comunitat Valenciana
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