Oliveira takes Moto3 pole in Argentina ahead of Kent, Antonelli and Vázquez

The Moto3 class has opened the afternoon of qualifying sessions at the Argentinian GP, and it has done so with Miguel Oliveira as an unexpected pole-sitter. The Portuguese rider beat the time of Danny Kent in the final moments of the session, when it was already expected that the championship leader would achieve his fourth pole of his career.

Kent was satisfied despite not having been able to enjoy the pole, because he knows that he has a strong pace with which he can aim for victory. Third place went to Niccolò Antonelli, while Efrén Vázquez will start from fourth place. Isaac Viñales and Jorge Navarro also made it into the top ten and will start from 5th and 7th positions on the grid.

Danny Kent was the favourite to take the pole, as he had dominated the free practice sessions. It was not the Briton who set the first reference time, but Isaac Viñales, who set a great lap that allowed him to lead the classification during the first part of the session. The rest of the riders struggled to beat the time of the Husqvarna rider, and some crashed in the attempt, such as Alexis Masbou when he had been sixth, or Gabriel Rodrigo, who suffered his third crash of the weekend.

The session’s greatest excitement was concentrated in the final ten minutes, with the riders riding in a group and looking for slipstreams to lower their times. Danny Kent did not need them, because little by little he was improving his figures. With 1:48.816 he beat Viñales by 77 thousandths, but he did not stop there, because he then took two more bites at the lap time, setting 1:48.599 and 1:48.511, the time that seemed to be worth a pole.

However, on his last lap, Oliveira surprised everyone on the KTM and claimed the pole with a time of 1:48.461, which was 50 thousandths better than Kent’s. Behind them, two other riders from Honda, such as Antonelli and Viñales, were separated by small margins, as the first four classified riders are within a margin of three tenths. Isaac Viñales finished fifth ahead of Karel Hanika and Jorge Navarro. The top ten was completed by Fenati, Ono and Bastianini.

Juanfran Guevara finished in 12th position, but to find the rest of the Spanish riders we have to go quite far down the classification, as Jorge Martín 23rd, María Herrera 24th and Murcian rider Ana Carrasco 33rd were more than 3 seconds behind the leader.

The race will start on Sunday at 18:00 in Spain, where this time there is no free-to-air broadcast on Telecinco. These were the times of the qualifying session:

Photo and classification | MotoGP.com