Francesco Bagnaia dominated the Moto2 qualifying session at the Red Bull Ring to claim pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix. The Sky VR46 rider dominated either side of a red flag stoppage, caused by a crash for his team-mate Luca Marini, and will start just ahead of title rival Miguel Oliveira who qualified a season’s best of second.
As is so often the case in the intermediate class, many riders set their fastest times in the early stages of qualifying with Bagnaia unleashing a blistering sequence of laps, straight out of the box. The Italian eventually lowered the benchmark time to a 1:29.409, giving him a six-tenth cushion over Oliveira, and when Marini’s crashed dropped debris and gravel at turn seven, that looked to be that.
At the restart though, Fabio Quartararo jumped up to second on the Speed Up, becoming the second rider to break the 90-second barrier, and this triggered a response from Oliveira. The championship leader would improve to a 1:29.719, effectively halving the deficit between himself and Bagnaia to take second, his first front row starting spot of the 2018 season.
Jorge Navarro snatched fourth from Alex Marquez after the Marc VDS rider suffered a crash at turn two while Mattia Pasini took the final spot on row two. Marcel Schrotter will start seventh ahead of Brad Binder and Lorenzo Baldassarri, another rider to tumble, while Marini dropped all the way to tenth in the end.
The most damaging crash of all came right at the beginning of the session as Xavi Vierge tangled with Steven Odendaal. The contact unseated Vierge and the Spaniard, who lies seventh in the championship, will be forced to miss tomorrow’s race with a broken wrist.
Moto2 eyetime Motorrad Grand Prix von Osterreich (Qualifying)
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