Del Conca Gresini's Jorge Martin impressed on Saturday to take pole position for the Italian round of the Moto3 series – it's the Spaniard's 13th Moto3 pole meaning he equals the record set by Alex Rins.
Martin looked surpreme as he took provisional pole and then bettered it on his final run to finish almost two-tenths clears of the chasing pack behind.
"I was not surprised with the pole position, but it wasn’t an easy one: I did a great lap without slipstreams… too bad because I think the lap record was within reach," commented Martin.
"We will try to push in the race and make some selection, in order to be 4 maximum 5 to battle for the win – especially as last year I was on pole and ended up outside the top-10. The goal is obviously to win."
SIC58 Squadra Corse's Tatsuki Suzuki and Sprinta Racing's Ayumu Sasaki also impressed as they completed the front-row in second and third, split by just 0.020.
It marks the first front-row start for the Japanese pair and all the more impressive for Sasaki, who pushed through the pain barrier following a leg injury sustained at Le Mans to clinch third from Marc VDS rider Aron Canet, a mere 0.014 behind.
The highest ranked Italian was Marco Bezzecchi – 0.017 in arrears to complete the top five. Pole sitter Martin's team-mate Fabio Di Giannantonio was sixth ahead of Niccolo Antonelli.
Adam Norrodin, Marcos Ramirez and Kaito Toba complete the top ten which was covered by just over six-tenths, giving a preview of what might be to come on Sunday in what will likely be an incredibly close race.
Click here for full qualifying results for the Italian round of Moto3.
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