Alonso Lopez stormed to pole position with a pole position record ahead of Jake Dixon and Ai Ogura who join him on the front row for tomorrow’s race.
In Q1, all eyes were on Barry Baltus, Celestino Vietti and Sergio Garcia as they fought for the four spots available to progress through to Q2. After the first set of laps, the spots were filled by Baltus, Vietti, Garcia and Jeremy Alcoba.
After setting a good lap time, Garcia crashed at turn one causing a yellow flag with two minutes to go. Lukas Tulovic crossed the start-finish line but was only able to set the fifth fastest time. Even with the yellow flag, he still had time to complete another fast lap.
However, due to the yellow flag, no rider was able to set a faster lap time and Baltus, Alcoba, Vietti and Garcia were the riders who went through to the second round of qualifying.
The next fifteen minutes were dedicated to finding the riders who would set the top eighteen places for the grid tomorrow. All the riders came out as soon as the green flag was flown except Ai Ogura, Aron Canet and Somkiat Chantra.
After the first set of runs, Dixon set a 1:36.304 – the all-time pole record around the TT Circuit Assen. He was followed by Acosta, Fermin Aldeguer, Sam Lowes and Manuel Gonzalez.
Dixon almost set a faster lap time, as he was up on his own time in the first two sectors but was met with traffic in the third sector, meaning he was unable to improve. Acosta had his second flying lap deleted due to exceeding track limits. Vietti jumped up to second place ahead of Albert Arenas.
Ogura jumped to the top of the timesheets with a lap 0.003 seconds faster than Dixon who had just gone into the pits to change his tyres and headed out for a second set of lap times. Pedro Acosta was able to improve on his lap time to set the third fastest lap time but was still a quarter of a second down on the lap time from Ogura.
With four minutes left, Vietti crashed in sector one causing a yellow flag for the riders behind, but Dixon was lucky in that he was coming to the end of his lap when the caution came out and set a faster lap once again and Sam Lowes also improved to fourth place.
Arenas had the potential to set a quick time after setting the fastest first two sectors but was unable to put the rest of the lap together and set the seventh fastest lap time.
Aron Canet crashed at turn one with two minutes left in the session causing a yellow flag. Lopez was incredibly lucky to have passed through sector one before the Pons Wegow Los40 rider went down and was able to set a 1:36.247, which is a pole position record and only nine thousandths of a second faster than Dixon just behind him. Ogura joins the Spaniard and Brit on the front row tomorrow.
Aldeguer leads the second row ahead of Lowes and Acosta in front of the third row which consists of Chantra, Arenas and Vietti.
Championship leader Tony Arbolino was only able to set a time fast enough for tenth place on the grid tomorrow.
Feature Image Credit: MotoGP
| 2023 DUTCH MOTO2 GRAND PRIX, ASSEN – QUALIFYING RESULTS | |||||
| POS | RIDER | NAT | TEAM | BIKE | TIME |
| 1 | Alonso Lopez | SPA | Beta Tools SpeedUp | (Boscoscuro) | 1m 36.247s |
| 2 | Jake Dixon | GBR | Inde GASGAS Aspar Team | (Kalex) | 1m 36.256s |
| 3 | Ai Ogura | JPN | IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia | (Kalex) | 1m 36.301s |
| 4 | Fermín Aldeguer | SPA | Beta Tools SpeedUp | (Boscoscuro) | 1m 36.481s |
| 5 | Sam Lowes | GBR | Elf Marc VDS Racing Team | (Kalex) | 1m 36.528s |
| 6 | Pedro Acosta | SPA | Red Bull KTM Ajo | (Kalex) | 1m 36.560s |
| 7 | Somkiat Chantra | THA | IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia | (Kalex) | 1m 36.564s |
| 8 | Albert Arenas | SPA | Red Bull KTM Ajo | (Kalex) | 1m 36.603s |
| 9 | Celestino Vietti | ITA | Fantic Racing | (Kalex) | 1m 36.663s |
| 10 | Tony Arbolino | ITA | Elf Marc VDS Racing Team | (Kalex) | 1m 36.738s |
| 11 | Aron Canet | SPA | Pons Wegow Los40 | (Kalex) | 1m 36.763s |
| 12 | Manuel Gonzalez | SPA | Correos Prepago Yamaha VR46 | (Kalex) | 1m 36.827s |
| 13 | Filip Salac | CZE | QJMOTOR Gresini Moto2 | (Kalex) | 1m 36.850s |
| 14 | Joe Roberts | USA | Italtrans Racing Team | (Kalex) | 1m 37.045s |
| 15 | Darryn Binder | RSA | Liqui Moly Husqvarna Intact GP | (Kalex) | 1m 37.133s |
| 16 | Barry Baltus | BEL | Fieten Olie Racing GP | (Kalex) | 1m 37.136s |
| 17 | Sergio Garcia | SPA | Pons Wegow Los40 | (Kalex) | 1m 37.512s |
| 18 | Jeremy Alcoba | SPA | QJMOTOR Gresini Moto2 | (Kalex) | 1m 37.691s |
| 19 | Lukas Tulovic | GER | Liqui Moly Husqvarna Intact GP | (Kalex) | 1m 37.223s |
| 20 | Carlos Tatay | SPA | OnlyFans American Racing | (Kalex) | 1m 37.384s |
| 21 | Izan Guevara | SPA | Inde GASGAS Aspar Team | (Kalex) | 1m 37.407s |
| 22 | Sean Dylan Kelly | USA | OnlyFans American Racing | (Kalex) | 1m 37.517s |
| 23 | Zonta Vd Goorbergh | NED | Fieten Olie Racing GP | (Kalex) | 1m 37.518s |
| 24 | Borja Gomez | SPA | Fantic Racing | (Kalex) | 1m 37.551s |
| 25 | Dennis Foggia | ITA | Italtrans Racing Team | (Kalex) | 1m 37.738s |
| 26 | Yeray Ruiz | SPA | Forward Team | (Forward) | 1m 37.742s |
| 27 | Taiga Hada | JPN | Pertamina Mandalika SAG Team | (Kalex) | 1m 38.113s |
| 28 | Alex Escrig | SPA | Forward Team | (Forward) | 1m 38.134s |