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Valencia Moto2: Pol Espargaro gets pole despite crash

Pol Espargaro captured his seventh pole of this year's Moto2 campaign despite a violent late fall at Valencia

The Spaniard had been almost half a second clear of the field when he went down heavily on the exit of Turn 4, bringing his session to a premature conclusion 12 minutes from the end.

Despite missing the late running, Espargaro's best of 1m35.191s proved enough to hang on to pole for the final race of the season.

Newly-crowned champion Marc Marquez was Espargaro's nearest challenger on the track, although he was guaranteed to start at the back of the field following a penalty for a practice collision.

In the end that proved no influence on the pole fight however, with the Monlau Suter man unable to match Espargaro.

Marquez also fell five minutes from the end, but was able to get his bike restarted and even improved on his final lap - although he was still more than four tenths off pole.

No other rider was able to get within half a second of the benchmark time, with Thomas Luthi - third in the session and therefore second on Sunday's grid - 0.565s in arrears.

The Swiss rider can still catch Andrea Iannone, who starts from ninth, for third place in the championship.

Takaaki Nakagami claimed the final share of the front row, with Nico Terol, Jordi Torres and Dominique Aegerter rounding out the top six.

In what was a relatively low-key session, Scott Redding claimed seventh ahead of Simone Corsi and Iannone.

Bradley Smith was only 22nd in his final Moto2 qualifying session before stepping up to the Tech3 MotoGP squad.

Pos  Rider                 Team/Bike              Time       Gap
 1.  Pol Espargaro         Pons Kalex             1m35.191s
 2.  Marc Marquez          Monlau Suter           1m35.597s  + 0.406s
 3.  Thomas Luthi          Paddock Suter          1m35.756s  + 0.565s
 4.  Takaaki Nakagami      Italtrans Kalex        1m35.801s  + 0.610s
 5.  Nicolas Terol         Aspar Suter            1m35.858s  + 0.667s
 6.  Jordi Torres          Aspar Suter            1m35.915s  + 0.724s
 7.  Dominique Aegerter    Technomag-CIP Suter    1m35.949s  + 0.758s
 8.  Scott Redding         Marc VDS Kalex         1m35.966s  + 0.775s
 9.  Simone Corsi          Ioda FTR               1m35.983s  + 0.792s
10.  Andrea Iannone        Speed Master Speed Up  1m36.016s  + 0.825s
11.  Johann Zarco          JIR Motobi             1m36.108s  + 0.917s
12.  Julian Simon          Avintia Suter          1m36.129s  + 0.938s
13.  Xavier Simeon         Tech 3                 1m36.236s  + 1.045s
14.  Esteve Rabat          Pons Kalex             1m36.278s  + 1.087s
15.  Toni Elias            Italtrans Kalex        1m36.483s  + 1.292s
16.  Mika Kallio           Marc VDS Kalex         1m36.489s  + 1.298s
17.  Mike di Meglio        Kiefer Kalex           1m36.511s  + 1.320s
18.  Yuki Takahashi        Forward FTR            1m36.583s  + 1.392s
19.  Randy Krummenacher    Switzerland Kalex      1m36.629s  + 1.438s
20.  Gino Rea              Gresini Suter          1m36.687s  + 1.496s
21.  Roman Ramos           SAG FTR                1m36.701s  + 1.510s
22.  Bradley Smith         Tech 3                 1m36.771s  + 1.580s
23.  Mattia Pasini         Forward FTR            1m36.868s  + 1.677s
24.  Ratthapark Wilairot   Gresini Suter          1m36.873s  + 1.682s
25.  Marcel Schrotter      SAG Bimota             1m36.990s  + 1.799s
26.  Axel Pons             Pons Kalex             1m37.096s  + 1.905s
27.  Dani Rivas            TSR Kalex              1m37.228s  + 2.037s
28.  Tomoyoshi Koyama      Technomag-CIP Suter    1m37.357s  + 2.166s
29.  Ricard Cardus         Arguinano AJR          1m37.384s  + 2.193s
30.  Alessandro Andreozzi  Speed Master Speed Up  1m37.463s  + 2.272s
31.  Rafid Topan Sucipto   QMMF Speed Up          1m38.982s  + 3.791s
32.  Eric Granado          JIR Motobi             1m39.602s  + 4.411s
33.  Elena Rosell          QMMF Speed Up          1m40.063s  + 4.872s

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