Pol is on pole as he seeks elusive victory
POL ESPARGARO hopes to convert his maiden pole into his first Motogp win today after dominating the weekend so far in Austria.
In a close qualifying session, where the top four were covered by a tenth of a second, Espargaro’s Red Bull KTM gave him wings around the Red Bull Ring as he clocked a best lap of 1min 23.580secs, beating Takaaki Nakagami by 0.022secs.
It comes a week since he was denied his first Motogp win having led the race when it was stopped and then struggling with tyres at the restart before ending up in the gravel after a collision with fellow KTM rider Miguel Oliveira.
He said: “It’s unbelievable, I feel really pleased because I was not imagining that we could get the pole, I was trying for the first or maybe second row.”
Esponsorama Racing Ducati’s Johann Zarco qualified third but the Frenchman will be forced to start the race from pit lane after race chiefs found him guilty of irresponsible riding last weekend.
In the Bennetts British Superbike Championship, Christian Iddon celebrated his maiden race win as he beat team-mate Josh Brookes at Snetterton yesterday.
The Visiontrack Ducati rider inherited the lead on lap four of the 14-lap race as early leader and polesitter Danny Buchan crashed his Massingberd-mundy Kawasaki.
Iddon then took control and, after a duel with Brookes, he charged to an eventual win by 1.303secs.
He joked: “It’s been a while coming and then I finally get a race win and I’ve got to wear this face mask so nobody can see me smiling!”