Cameron Beaubier stuns home crowds to take his maiden pole position in Moto2. He will be joined on the front row by championship leader, Celestino Vietti in second and Aron Canet in third.
American track, American rider and American team – today’s qualifying ticked all the boxes for the fans in the grandstands. Cameron Beaubier is the first American rider to secure a pole position at home since 2010.
He will be joined on the front row for tomorrow’s race by Celestino Vietti who, despite leading the championship after a strong start to the season, was forced to make his way through Q1. It was Vietti who set the early pace in Q2 but was eventually forced to settle for second.
Aron Canet was able to take third, despite a late crash for the Spanish rider. He fell at turn 17 as the front end folded underneath him and left him in the kitty litter.
Canet wasn’t the only rider to crash as the riders seemed to fight with the COTA track – Augusto Fernandez crashed at turn 17 and, as a result, wasn’t able to set a lap time in Q2. Tony Arbolino crashed at turn 8 but was able to get back up, dust himself down, and set a time that was good enough for fourth. Similarly, Ai Ogura crashed at turn 11 whilst sitting in third. He was eventually shuffled down to 11th.
The various yellow flags caused by these crashes left a lot of riders needing to abandon their laps. However, no one was able to get close to Beaubier’s time of 2:08.751.
Albert Arenas and his GASGAS Aspar teammate, Jake Dixon, set the fifth and sixth fastest times respectively. Jorge Navarro, who has already been slapped with a long lap penalty for tomorrow’s race after crashing under yellow flags during FP3, will start tomorrow’s race in seventh.
Fermin Aldeguer has looked incredibly quick all weekend and set the eighth fastest time ahead of tomorrow’s race. The top ten was rounded out by Sam Lowes and rookie Pedro Acosta.
Feature Image Credit: MotoGP
