POLE POSITION IS BECOMING A HABIT FOR JORGE MARTIN
The #GermanGP has been so far the kingdom of Jorge Martin and Team Del Conca Gresini Moto3, who have claimed today at the Sachsenring another pole position in the quarter-litre class of MotoGP. This is pole number 15 for the Spanish rider – rewriting once again the all-time record for the category – and the sixth of the season (he only missed it Qatar, Argentina and Catalunya).
Today’s pole position came in a sort of unusual way for Martin, who played his card right early on as he went back on track for the last stint with eight minutes left – so before the rest of the field – in order to avoid the usual traffic. It was a gamble that paid off, even though it left more chances to his rivals in the last minutes – with Rodríguez eventually only 0.060secs away in second place.
Fabio Di Giannantoniowas able to save the day by setting the tenth-quickest time with a four-tenths gap from his teammate: this morning, he was 29th and almost two seconds away from the top.
The Italian rider #21 will line up on the fourth row of the grid, knowing he has the pace to battle at the front in the ninth Moto3 race of 2018, which will get underway at 11:00 local time (GMT +2).
1st – JORGE MARTIN #88
“We worked up until now only on our race pace. We did an excellent lap in qualifying, even though I must admit that we lost a couple of tenths during our best attempt due to Kornfeil and Öttl who were slower than me and held me back. Obviously I’m super happy with my 15th Moto3 pole position and I hope tomorrow we will be able to make some selection early on and make sure it’ll be only a few of us battling for the win.”
10th – FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO #21
“This morning we got on track with yesterday’s used tyres and we had a lot of issues. We worked hard to make sure we got to qualifying in better condition and we managed to do so: we were only four tenths away from Jorge and, if we think that we were almost two seconds away from the top in FP3, I must say things improved quite a lot! I could have been even a bit further up but I was held back a little by Rodrigo. Row four is not too bad, and we’ll be right in the game tomorrow.”
