Ajo Motorsport team rider will take off from second row, chasing a podium at the Aragon GP for the third time.

Johann Zarco continued his good work ahead of the Aragon GP with a solid qualifying performance on Saturday taking fifth place to set up an assault on the podium. After taking a step forward in the last Free Practice session, the current Moto2 World Championship leader was strong in qualifying and will start from the second row of the grid.

FP3 allowed the Ajo Motorsport rider to continue working on the setup of his Kalex and improve his feeling from Friday. On the twelfth of the seventeen laps which he put in during this session, the Frenchman set a best time of 1:53.603, finishing second and lowering his best time from Friday by over half a second. He was the rider with the best race pace during the 45 minute run.

In the qualifying session, amidst strong gusts of wind, Zarco was not as comfortable. However, he almost matched his FP3 time by the midway point, setting a 1:53.659 lap that gave the reigning World Champion fifth place on the grid.

Having previously placed on the podium at MotorLand Aragon on two occasions (in 2011 and 2014), the Ajo Motorsport rider will look to make it three at the Spanish track when the Moto2 race begins at 12:20pm local time tomorrow.

Results – Qualifying Session
1. Sam Lowes (Kalex) 1:53.207
2. Alex Marquez (Kalex) 1:53.261 +0.054
3. Takaaki Nakagami (Kalex) 1:53.491 +0.284
4. Jonas Folger (Kalex) 1:53.501 +0.294
5. Johann Zarco (Ajo Motorsport) 1:53.659 +0.452
21. Tetsuta Nagashima (Ajo Motorsport Academy) 1:54.830 +1.623

5 JOHANN ZARCO

“The second row is a good result for tomorrow. Our goal is to get on the podium and finish ahead of Alex Rins. I’m sure tomorrow he’ll feel better and that he will be fighting for a place at the front. This weekend has been good for me so far; we are not high up the order but I feel good and have improved a lot with the bike, and that’s very important. I am doing everything possible to go fast; we are lacking a few tenths of a second, but for the race we could have enough to win. This is a difficult circuit, and doing well on every sector on the same lap may perhaps be my weak point. In any case, I am happy with this fifth place. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, but it is a good position from which to fight for the top spots.”