Roberts wins dead heat with Marini to secure maiden Moto2 pole in Qatar

Joe Roberts stormed to a maiden Moto2 pole position as he won a dead heat with VR46 man Luca Marini, the pair setting an identical time of 1:58.136.

Marini was the first to set the time, relegating then leader and Q1 graduate Jorge Navarro by over two-tenths to sit well clear in the lead.

Roberts then looked set to move well clear of the Italian on his own effort, but dropped time in the final sector to ultimately set the exact same time, giving him pole by virtue of his second fastest time.

The duo will be joined on the front row by Enea Bastianini, the Italtrans man impressing as he begins his sophomore campaign in the intermediate class.

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Navarro had to settle for an eventual fourth and the front of the second row after being shuffled back, just ahead of Bo Bensneyeder who continued to enjoy a strong weekend for the un-fancied NTS squad.

Remy Gardner will start sixth-a good performance considering the SAG squad are the only ones to run the ’19-spec Kalex chassis this year-while Marco Bezzecchi and Jorge Martin followed shortly behind in seventh and eighth.

Lorenzo Baldassarri managed to salvage ninth in what has been a low-key weekend from Pons so far, slotting in ahead of Petronas SRT’s Xavi Vierge, the Italian managing the second fastest Q1 time behind Marcel Schrotter.

Schrotter came within a whisker of beating Roberts’ best time from yesterday as he topped his session, the German posting a 1:58.422 to lead Baldassarri by over two-tenths.

The pair were joined by Speed Up’s Jorge Navarro and Edgar Pons to challenge the other 14 riders in the pole position shootout, the latter demoting Somkiat Chantra in the closing stages to take the spot.

Schrotter could ultimately bag a lowly 13^th on the grid, although still ahead of FP1 leading team-mate Thomas Luthi-the Swiss seemingly struggling for confidence following the pair of crashes he suffered in FP2 yesterday evening.

Augusto Fernandez was a surprisingly low 12^th on the grid in his first qualifying for Marc VDS, while FP3 leader Aron Canet could only muster 16^th on his Aspar-run Speed Up.