Fermin Aldeguer takes his second pole position in Australia ahead of Agusto Fernandez and Alonso Lopez – Marcel Schrötter fails already in Q1
Fermin Aldeguer gave Boscoscuro their second Moto2 pole of the season after Argentina. The Spaniard set a new track record of 1’32.233 in qualifying at Phillip Island, leaving the Kalex competition behind.
WM leader Augusto Fernandez took second place. Aldeguer’s team-mate Alonso Lopez completed the good result for Bososcuro in third place.
Marcel Schrötter had to start already in the first qualifying section. The only German rider in the motorbike world championship failed to advance as sixth in the session and will have to tackle tomorrow’s race from 20th on the grid.
Shortly after setting the fastest lap of Q1, @AlbertArenas75 crashed out at T1 AustralianGP pic. twitter.com/ftIiCYQog4
– MotoGP™ (@MotoGP) October 15, 2022
Albert Arenas caused an early scare when he flew off in the fast turn 1 and demolished his Kalex. At that point he was still first in Q1, but was then also pushed through to fifth place. Manuel Gonzalez, Lorenzo Dalla Porta, Celestino Vietti and Somkiat Chantra advanced.
In Q2, Aldeguer took the lead with his first flying lap and never relinquished it. A few seconds before the end of the time, the session was stopped with the red flag due to animals on the track – just like in the third free practice session of Moto3 in the morning.
At this point, however, nobody was doing any really fast laps. Fernandez was 73 thousandths off the pole time. The World Championship leader caused a stir, however, not with second place, but with a dispute with Gonzalez.
A conduct warning for @Afernandez37 ⚠️
Here is what happened with @18ManuGonzalez AustralianGP pic.twitter.com/xFPc7JYoJl
– MotoGP™ (@MotoGP) October 15, 2022
Both had previously clashed and gesticulated over several corners while others were still on flying laps. This is under investigation.
Lopez had to settle for third place this time after setting the fastest time in the third free practice session. He was a good three tenths of a second behind. In tomorrow’s race, he will have to complete a long-lap penalty. This is a penalty for an incident with Vietti in Friday practice.
Vietti finished the qualifying session in sixth place after his Q1 sweep, putting him behind Tony Arbolino and Aron Canet. Gonzalez was seventh. Pedro Acosta, Jeremy Alcoba and Filip Salac rounded off the top 10, while current World Championship runner-up Ai Ogura did not finish higher than 13th on the grid.