The Australian Red Bull KTM Ajo rider lands pole position at Misano, his seventh pole of the season. Karel Hanika is on the seventh row, in nineteenth position.

The sun finally made an appearance at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, allowing for an electrifying Moto3 qualifying session. The current championship leader of the smallest category, Jack Miller, succeeded in taking his seventh pole position of the year by a mere 0.004 seconds. His teammate, Karel Hanika, missed out on the two free practice sessions yesterday due to rain and managed to qualify in nineteenth place on the seventh row.

A first lap in the half-wet, half-dry Italian track allowed Miller to analyze the situation and return to the box. It was not until 15 minutes, and a slightly drier track, that both Miller and Hanika could begin the real work of the day. Both focused on bike sensation while the tarmac was drying, to end the session with a fifth place —1:44.468— and sixteenth —1:45.323— in a session that was disrupted by a red flag with three minutes to go.

In the qualifying session, and the final track time of the day, the two were finally able to ride at full throttle from the first minute of the session. Times fell continually from the start, until with 4 minutes left, the Australian set his fastest lap all weekend: a 1:42.974. Meanwhile, Hanika gradually worked on bike feedback on the dry track, ending with a best time of 1:44.286 to put him nineteenth on the grid.

The Moto3 race starts tomorrow at 11:00am, marking the 50th Grand Prix of Jack Miller’s career in the World Championship.

Results – Qualifying practice
1. Jack Miller (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 1:42.974
2. Niklas Ajo (Avant Tecno Husqvarna Ajo) 1:42.978 +0.004
3. Alex Rins (Honda) 1:43.012 +0.038
4. Alex Marquez (Honda) 1:43.163 +0.189
5. Miguel Oliveira (Mahindra) 1:43.298 +0.324
19. Karel Hanika (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 1:44.286 +1.312

Jack Miller >> Audio (solely for radio use)

“We’ve been working a lot with the settings of the bike. We made a major change in the qualifying session and it’s made a difference. I’m very happy we made this step forward. We are headed in the right direction and it hasn’t been easy, because yesterday we lost two sessions due to bad weather. We had to do everything this morning. We found a great set-up and I’m really pleased with how the bike behaves.

Although this doesn’t give me any points, I’m also really happy for the pole position. I think and hope that tomorrow we can break away the group and not have 15 riders in the front. Here it isn’t impossible to escape, though it is certainly going to be difficult. We’ll see what happens.”

Karel Hanika >> Audio (solely for radio use)

“I don’t think the problem today was with the pain in my finger. We could have done much better but with a one session more things would have been different, because we couldn’t work on anything yesterday. We didn’t find the right path to go faster, we needed more laps, but it’s normal, we need a whole day’s work. I think honestly, what needs to improve is my riding. I have to get more confidence, especially in the front end, for tomorrow there will be hard braking and overtaking.

We’ll use the warmup to make some changes that we have planned and try to improve. It will be important to make the most of it, to set us up for the race. If we can do this we can have a good race.”