Who else but Jorge Martin? Yes, the 2018 Moto3 World Championship leader took yet another pole position, his sixth of the season and fourteenth of his career. That said, it hasn’t been the usual dominance from Martin this weekend, despite admitting that he enjoys the Sachsenring a lot. That said, it is tough to bet against the Spaniard for the race win tomorrow, as he seeks to extend his two-point championship lead.
Lining up alongside the Gresini Honda on tomorrow’s grid are Marcos Ramirez and Enea Bastianini. Ramirez finished on the podium in Germany last year, and so will harbour hopes of enjoying a good result tomorrow. Meanwhile, Bastianini is coming off the back of his second consecutive podium, and, lying just twenty-one points off the championship lead, will be looking to close the deficit he currently suffers to Martin.
Jaume Masia completed what was a very positive day for the Bester Capital Dubai team, by taking fourth on the grid – his best qualifying of the season. Aron Canet, who like Bastianini will be aiming to reduce his gap to the top of the championship tomorrow, starts between Masia and Tony Arbolino on the second row of the grid.
Marco Bezzecchi qualified seventh. His pace has not been anything fantastic this weekend, but Bezzecchi has a tendency to race better than he practices so we will see what he can do tomorrow. John McPhee and Ayumu Sasaki join the Argentine GP winner on the third row of the grid.
Fabio Di Giannantonio rounded out the top ten in qualifying, and will start from the head of the fourth row tomorrow. Alongside him will be Albert Arenas and Gabriel Rodrigo.
Despite being incredibly fast at times, Philipp Oettl could only manage thirteenth place on the grid for his home Grand Prix, and alongside him on the fifth row of the grid will be Darryn Binder’s impressive replacement Raul Fernandez, and Tatsuki Suzuki.
Niccolo Antonelli will start from sixteenth tomorrow, alongside Lorenzo Dalla Porta and Adam Norrodin on the sixth row of the grid.
The wildcard, Ai Ogura, has been severely impressive this weekend, which makes nineteenth sound quite bad, but ultimately he was only eight tenths away from Martin’s pole time; and starting alongside Alonso Lopez and Jakub Kornfeil on row seven means he is in some good company.
Kazuki Masaki starts from twenty-second tomorrow, ahead of a disappointing Nicolo Bulega who has looked faster than row eight this weekend, but with such a difficult qualifying has probably ruined what could be his best chance of getting on the podium this season. Kaito Toba joins Masaki and Bulega on the eighth row.
It has been an awful weekend for Andrea Migno, as it has for Dennis Foggia. They both start from row nine, in 25th and 27th respectively. In between them is the wildcard Luca Grunwald who has not disgraced himself whatsoever this weekend, although being 26th on the grid in his home Grand Prix perhaps says a bit about the quality of the SSP300 field, in the standings of which he lies second.
The final row consists of Livio Loi’s replacement, Vicente Perez, Nakarin Atriatphuvapat and Stefano Nepa.