Moto2 Doha QP: Sam Lowes doubles up with another pole position
He is absolutely #OnIt! Sam Lowes takes back-to-back pole positions in Doha.
Sam Lowes really wants that title this year, he backs up last weekends pole to win with another pole position this weekend at Doha with a lap time of 1:59.055 just missing out on the 1:58 barrier, the times in the class were much slower than we saw last weekend due to dust and dirt on the track but this was not an issue for the Lincolnshire man who stormed to P1 picking up his second pole watch of the year, Lowes currently leads the championship and aims to win again which would give him a huge advantage going into Portimao, he is joined by Remy Gardner in second place.
Remy Gardner tried his best but just missed out on pole position, he has been a consistent title threat since he made the move to the Red Bull KTM Ajo team under the guidance of Aki Ajo who is known to breed champions, this is paying off hugely with Remy’s competitiveness along with his teammate Raul Fernandez who finished the session in P4 overall and will head the second row of the grid. Fernandez was able to finish the free practice sessions with an advantage of half a second before converting this into a P4 start. Just between the Red Bull Ajo boys is Marco Bezzecchi, the Italian is another heavyweight rider which many are eyeing for the title this year, his front row start will majorly aid him in fighting for the podium tomorrow.
It was a fairly impressive second row behind Fernandez with Jake Dixon and rookie Ai Ogura, Dixon spent last weekend struggling all weekend long with his wrist injury but was able to bite down on his gumshield and finish the race in P7 overall. This finish has given him the confidence to improve on that and he has qualified in P5 ahead of rookie Ai Ogura, Ogura may have gotten a bit jealous seeing Fernandez’s praise as a rookie wanting some of that for his own, he gritted his teeth and put a very surprising time in worthy of P6, it’s an interesting year in Moto2 given the huge level of talent we are seeing.
Row 3 was yet again another trio of extremely impressive riders headed by Fabio Di Giannantonio, ‘Diggia’ took a podium in the last race here at Qatar on his Kalex debut which bodes very well for the future as he eyes up a MotoGP move for 2022 with the Gresini team, he was very strong in the latter of last weekends race and there is no reason why he will not be battling again tomorrow, joining him is Joe Roberts and Aron Canet with Roberts aiming to take a podium here in Qatar where he holds the lap record. Canet is a rider who really will be looking to dig deep tomorrow and improve after struggling in the Qatar 1 race finishing in P13 which is much less than what he would’ve expected.
Cameron Beaubier stuck true to his word and improved his qualifying position after qualifying in P22 last time out, today he was able to go straight into Q2 and qualified within 1 second to pole positon in P14. He proved he has very strong race pace and can make up many positions very quickly so a top 10 result tomorrow could be on the cards for the rookie who starts ahead of Bo Bensneyder.
It was a tough day in the office for many including Xavi Vierge who was unable to get out of the Q1 session and starts from P19 joining Thomas Luthi at the rear end of the grid.
Q2 Results:
Q1 Results:
Featured image – Marc VDS
