Lopez went fast at the end of Q2 and beat the Valencia rider in 1:42.472, which is also a circuit record.
As in Moto3, the middle category riders find themselves at the start on a dry track. Given the constant threat of rain, the drivers competing in Q1 didn’t want to waste time and left early so they could record times.
The first thing that marked this session was the two crashes of the two Spaniards. First by Sergio García Dols and then by Borja Gomez before setting the clock. As a result, they were relegated to last place.
Regardless of the incident, the opponents one by one posted their best times. Among them, the one who eventually took the lead was Darryn Binder. With a record time of 1:43.450, the Moto2 debutant placed himself ahead of Celestino Vietti and Jeremy Alcoba.
The racers chose not to fight and fixed times. Binder again recorded a time of 1:43.404, beating Vietti. Valentino Rossi’s protégé attempted to beat the South African in the final seconds of the session but ultimately fell short by 0.011 seconds. In the end, they both made it through with Jeremy Alcoba and Sean Dylan Kelly.
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Then came Q2, which started out crashing at the start. Filip Salac, the pole position winner at Portimao, had an incident at Turn 9. The Czech racer was able to bounce back to try to record the time before the start flag was raised.
With 9 minutes remaining, Jake Dixon posted his first competitive time of 1:42.586. This British racer broke the pole position record, although not the fastest lap on the circuit. He beat three favorite racers, namely Aron Canet, Tony Arbolino and Pedro Acosta.
Thus, some pilots installed new tires to deal with the time attack. In that section, Somkiat Chantra was the first to beat Dixon’s time by 1:42,520. The joy didn’t last long though, as moments later Canet took over by just 0.007 seconds in the final minutes of the session.
When the pole position seemed to already belong to the racer from Valencia, Alonso Lopez appeared. He improved the record time and won first place with a difference of 0.041 seconds. Chantra completed the first row, and behind him were Dixon, Pedro Acosta, Vietti, Manu Gonzalez, Tony Arbolino, Joe Roberts and Albert Arenas.