Jakub Kornfeil claimed the first pole position of his Grand Prix career with a sensational late lap in front of his home crowd at Brno. The Czech rider, taking part in his 155th Grand Prix this weekend, judged his tactics to perfection in the dying seconds while so many of his rivals fluffed their lines, earning him a memorable maiden pole.
The weekend had started in hugely dramatic fashion with championship leader Jorge Martin suffering a highside late in FP1. The Spaniard was taken away in an ambulance and later diagnosed with a broken wrist, ruling him out of this weekend’s race and leaving him a serious doubt for the upcoming Austrian GP. The only consolation for the no.88 was the performance of title rival Marco Bezzecchi who will start down in fourteenth.
Fabio Di Giannantonio was upholding Gresini honour in qualifying, setting the early benchmark of a 2:08.473, but the Italian saw any hopes of pole disappear with a critical error. With a slipstream so valuable at Brno, most of the riders held back in the garage, waiting for a faster rider to exit the pitlane. Recognising this, Gresini held Di Giannantonio back but in doing so, they failed to get back out in time to beat the chequered flag. As it turned out, over half the field were caught out in identical fashion.
Four key riders were able to start their final flying lap in time and were rewarded with the front row spots on the grid. Kornfeil made full use of a slipstream from John McPhee’s KTM to grab pole, four tenths quicker than the Briton, while Marcos Ramirez pipped Philipp Oettl to the final place on the front row.
Di Giannantonio slipped to fifth ahead of Aron Canet and Gabriel Rodrigo while Nakarin Atiratphuvapat took a career-best eighth, edging out 2014 winner Niccolo Antonelli and Enea Bastianini.
Moto3 Monster Energy Grand Prix Ceske Republiky: (Qualifying)
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