Moto2 Qatar Qualifying: Sam Lowes takes pole position!

Sam Lowes has started the season has he means to go on in P1.

Sam Lowes takes pole position at the Losail International Circuit in Doha, the British rider had an unbelievable qualifying lapping consistently within his best lap time dominating the qualifying session with the fastest lap time of the weekend. Lowes said before the season he wants to win the title and his consistency this weekend is backing up his words, he needs to carry on and do the same tomorrow during the race but it won’t be easy for him as some new talent has emerged with the other two riders on the front row with him.

Raul Fernandez is by far one of the most naturally talented riders the MotoGP series has ever seen, from his 2016 Moto3 replacement ride when he took P11 replacing Maria Herrera in her own team to last year in Moto3 as the ‘Qualifying King’ taking the most pole positions overall in the class for the 2020 season, proving he knows how to put a lap time in when it counts, he struggled to find that extra 5% during the season to finish on the podium but once he found it he didn’t let it slip taking 2 wins and 4 podiums in the final 5 races of the season before a surprise Moto2 move due to his sheer height. He has joined Moto2 within the same team and has continued his qualifying form taking P2 in his first-ever Moto2 qualifying session, mirroring Moto3 rookie Izan Guevara.

Bo Bendsneyder finds himself on a Kalex in 2021 after proving he deserves to remain in Moto2 this year after putting in some solid performances on the NTS machinery in recent times. Originally signing to race in World Supersport he will now start tomorrows race from P3 overall after instantly adapting to the Kalex Moto2 bike and looking very strong, watch out for this rather fast Dutchman.

Marco Bezzecchi starts his first Moto2 race in 2021 in P4 on the second row amongst a huge line up of talent joined by Joe Roberts and Remy Gardner, Gardner originally setting a lap time which could’ve placed him on the front row however unfortunately an infringement on the track limits meant this was cancelled. In his final lap of the session Remy looked sure to improve this until yellow flags forced him to slow down.

Heading row 3 we see Jake Dixon on his return to racing after his career was nearly cut short from an injury at the tail end of the 2020 season, the British rider has come back like nothing has changed and has been instantly fast in P7 ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio who led the Q1 session to get into Q2 and Jorge Navarro.

Another impressive rookie in P10 is Celestino Vietti, the fast Italian rider leading row 4 joined by Nicolo Bulega and Aron Canet.

Full Q2 results:

Full Q1 results:

Featured image – Marc VDS