Moto2: Roberts Takes America’s First GP Pole in 10 Years

This weekend the Moto2 World Championship gets underway under the lights in Losail, and in a unique setting, will be the headline event at the Grand Prix of Qatar.

Joe Roberts backed up the hype surrounding his name after he was fastest on Friday, by taking his first pole position in the world championship. With this, Roberts became the first American rider to take pole position in an intermediate class grand prix since Kenny Noyes in Le Mans back in the first year of Moto2, 2010. If Roberts were to win tomorrow he would become the first American to win a grand prix since Ben Spies won the MotoGP race in Assen in 2011. 

Roberts’ fastest lap was not enough for pole position alone, it was in fact the American’s second-fastest lap that gave him pole position, since Luca Marini’s fastest lap was equal to Roberts’. Marini will line up second tomorrow, as he looks to be starting his 2020 campaign in a far better way than his 2019 season.

Joining Roberts and Marini on the front row will be Enea Bastianini, who finally looks back to form after a tough second half of 2019 following his crash – the fault of Marini – in Austria last summer. Bastianini has never really been a qualifier, so this strong position on Saturday could be indicative of a strong performance incoming for Sunday.

Jorge Navarro lines up at the front of the second row tomorrow, after passing through Q1. The Speed Up rider will be joined on the front row by NTS’ Bo Bendsneyder who finally has some top speed aboard the Japanese frame, and Remy Gardner – in some pain after a heavy crash on Friday – on last year’s Kalex chassis.

Marco Bezzecchi qualified seventh after Luca Marini – literally – threw him an arm and a leg on the run to the line for the #72’s final lap in Q2. The Sky VR46 pairing have been working together all weekend, and that continued into qualifying, where it bore the most fruit, Bezzecchi towing Marini to second and Marini returning the favour at the end to help Bezzecchi to seventh. Jorge Martin – still in trouble with an injury he sustained in preseason testing – will start from eighth tomorrow, whilst Lorenzo Baldassarri completes the third row in ninth.

Xavi Vierge will complete the top ten and head up row four for the first Moto2 race of the season, his debut for Petronas SRT. The Spaniard will be joined on the fourth row by Fabio Di Giannantonio and Augusto Fernandez who has been struggling with one-lap pace since his move to Marc VDS late last winter.

Marcel Schrotter has also been struggling for one-lap pace, and the German managed only thirteenth on the grid for this weekend’s season opener, qualifying just ahead of Tetsuta Nagashima on his debut for Red Bull Ajo, which ahead of Sunday has been disappointing. Nicolo Bulega was also a disappointment in qualifying, finishing fifteenth in Q2 after showing more promise than that throughout preseason and this race weekend so far.

Aron Canet was perhaps the most disappointing of all, qualifying sixteenth after spending the majority of the weekend before qualifying in and around the top three-to-five spots. The Spaniard has been suffering with arm pump – a common complaint from Moto2 rookies after they step up from Moto3 – so expect him to use the relatively lengthy break between this weekend and the next to fit in an arm pump surgery to cure that issue before round two. 

As it is, Canet will be joined on the sixth row by Edgar Pons and Tom Luthi, another disappointment in this first qualifying session of the season, taking eighteenth after a few crashes on Friday which clearly has an effect on the physical condition of the Swiss for Saturday.

Somkiat Chantra was the fastest rider to miss out on Q2, qualifying nineteenth. The Thai rider will be joined by Jake Dixon and Stefano Manzi on row seven tomorrow; whilst Jesko Raffin starts ahead of Hector Garzo and Marcos Ramirez on row eight.

It has been a difficult return to Moto2 for Hafizh Syahrin after two seasons in MotoGP, and the Malaysian qualified twenty-fifth on his debut for Aspar. Syahrin will be joined by Andi Izdihar and 2019 Moto3 World Champion Lorenzo Dalla Porta on the ninth row; whilst Simone Corsi and Kasma Kasmayudin make up the final row in twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth respectively.