Ivo Lopes reached ninth place on the starting grid of the Moto2 European Championship at Estoril this Saturday. The rider replaced the injured Brett Roberts at EasyRace Team and is getting to know the Boscoscuro bike, but has been performing well. Mattia Casadei took pole position in a rainy qualifying session.
In the first phase of qualifying, Mattia Rato (FAU55 Tey Racing/Kalex) was the fastest with a 0.033s lead over Eduardo Montero (PS Racing/Kalex), followed by Lorenzo Fellon (SF Racing/Kalex) at 2.049s. Daniel Muñoz (Gas Up Racing Team/Kalex) set the fourth fastest time and secured the last spot in Q2, leaving Mattia Volpi (MMR/Kalex) out by 0.370s.
The Q2 had 18 riders fighting for pole position. One of them was Lopes, who after securing direct qualification, performed well again: he set the ninth fastest time, although he was 6.607s slower than the pole position holder.
In ideal conditions on track, Casadei (Team Ciatti-Boscoscuro) secured pole position with a dominant lap in 1m56.441s. Taiga Hada (Gas Up Racing Team/Kalex) finished second, 1.715s behind.
The front row of the grid is completed by Montero, followed by Jorge Navarro (Forward Eest Racing), Alberto Fernández (Finetwork Team/Boscoscuro), and Eric Fernández (Fau55 Tey Racing/Kalex) on the second row. The Moto2 European Championship races at Estoril will take place this Sunday, both with 17 laps.
