Rins Claims Third Pole Of Season

Oct 17, 2015
2 min read

Rookie Moto2 rider Alex Rins secured his third pole of the 2015 season at Phillip Island.

Rins qualified on pole with a lap of 1m32.523s in ideal weather conditions at the legendary Australian track. After edging out Lowes on Friday and being quickest in final practice, Rins was once again the man on form in the qualifying session and in the end finished two tenths clear of Axel Pons.

Pons claimed an impressive second on the grid on what will be his first ever front row start. The result was a surprise to the paddock and bizarrely matched the result his father achieved 26 years earlier when he too claimed second on the grid for the 250cc raceat Phillip Island. Sam Lowes held onto third after suffering a heavy high side at turn six with just over ten minutes remaining. Fortunately, no rider was able to usurp his lap time and so the British rider will line up for his seventh front row of the season and first since his home race at Silverstone in August.

Thomas Luthi heads the second row alongside Mika Kallio and Takaaki Nakagami. Meanwhile, newly crowned Moto2 Champion Johann Zarco could only manage seventh place and the third row which is his worst qualifying since Indianapolis. However, less fortune favoured the outgoing world champion Tito Rabat who had to withdraw from the weekend once again following his crash in the second practice session aggravated the broken radius in his left arm.

Sandro Cortese and Lorenzo Baldassarri continued their fine practice form to qualify eighth and ninth whilst Julian Simon completed the top 10 for Sunday's 25-lap race. The top 17 riders were separated by just one second in what was another closely fought qualifying session.

Moto2 Australian Grand Prix Qualifying Top10:

POLE - Alex RINS, 1m32.523s

2nd - Axel PONS, +0.214s

3rd - Sam LOWES, +0.264s

4th - Thomas LUTHI, +0.361s

5th - Mika KALLIO, +0.434s

6th - Takaaki NAKAGAMI, +0.445s

7th - Johann ZARCO, +0.516s

8th - Sandro CORTESE, +0.563s

9th - Lorenzo BALDASSARRI, +0.679s

10th - Julian SIMON, +0.739s.

Full Moto2 Qualifying results available here.