Aaron Canet (Sterilgarda Max Racing Team) stunned the Moto3™ field by securing his first pole position since Qatar, following a busy morning that had seen him earlier work his way through Q1 in Aragon. The Spaniard confidently completed fewer laps than any other rider in the decisive session, posting a 1:58.197 to head Ai Ogura (Honda Team Asia) and Carlos Tatay (Fundación Andreas Pérez 77).
The Spaniard's advantage was narrowed in the closing stages by Ogura, the 18-year-old from Tokyo matching his previous career-best qualifying from the 2018 Spanish Grand Prix. But with a seven tenths of a second margin up front, Canet was never troubled.
The rest of the contenders battled for the all-important backstraight slipstream and for a place on the front row, with more than a few surprises emerging as a result and positions two to ten separated by just over four tenths of a second. Impressively, no less than three of the of the top five had transferred from Q1 and that session appeared to work as a warm-up for them as they timed their final laps to perfection.
Carlos Tatay (Fundación Andreas Pérez 77) in particular stunned, the final rider over the line at the end of the session stealing a place on the front row for only his second Moto3 start. Jakob Kornfeil (Redox PruestelGP) was relegated to row two in the process, but nonetheless records his best qualifying of the campaign in fourth.
Celestino Vietti (SKY Racing Team VR46) was the first rider to pass the line after the chequered flag and although his benchmark was beaten he retained fifth position at the session´s close. Alonso Lopez (Estrella Galicia 0,0) will complete the second row of the grid, a landmark qualifying for him seeing him into the top six positions for the first time in his career.
An all-Honda third row has an impressive line-up for tomorrow´s race: Tony Arbolino (VNE Snipers) will start alongside Tatsuki Suzuki (SIC58 Squadra Corse) and John McPhee (Petronas Sprinta Racing). The trio finished within a hundredth of a second of one another and just two hundredths from the second row after an intense finale to qualifying. Misano pole-sitter and winner Suzuki had been as high as fourth before dropping to eighth, while McPhee had been the early pace-setter in the session before Canet´s stunning effort but will have to content himself with tenth.
Championship leader Lorenzo Dalla Porta (Leopard Racing) will start back on the fourth row; he could only salvage twelfth having sat as far down as seventeenth before his final lap.
Moto3™ top ten:
1. Aron Canet (Sterilgarda Max Racing Team) – 1:58.197
2. Ai Ogura (Honda Team Asia) + 0.701
3. Carlos Tatay (Fundacion Andreas Perez 77) + 0.786
4. Jakub Kornfeil (Redox PruestelGP) + 0.895
5. Celestino Vietti (SKY Racing Team VR46) + 0.924
6. Alonso Lopez (Estrella Galicia 0,0) + 0.997
7. Tony Arbolino (VNE Snipers) + 1.004
8. Tatsuki Suzuki (SIC58 Squadra Corse) + 1.007
9. John McPhee (Petronas Sprinta Racing) + 1.015
10. Ayumu Sasaki (Petronas Sprinta Racing) + 1.139
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