Austin Moto2: Rins clinches pole in red-flagged session

With the track fully dry despite earlier showers, practice pacesetter Rins made a statement right away, putting in a 2m08.850s lap within the first 10 minutes of the 45-minute session.

And during the first half of qualifying, it was only Lowes who got within a second of Rins' lap, going 0.264s slower.

Shortly thereafter, Takaaki Nakagami moved up to third, three-quarters of a second down on the session leader.

In improving, the Japanese rider passed Jonas Folger - who was improving himself, but got held up by Mattia Pasini late in the lap, the German subsequently shaking his fist at the Italian.

The status quo remained until 10 minutes were left on the clock, when rookie Vazquez - the sole Suter rider in the field - fell at Turn 7, the Spaniard's crash bringing out the red flag as he had been knocked unconscious and had to be treated by the medical staff.

With Vazquez taken to the medical centre in an ambulance and regaining consciousness, the session resumed 12 minutes after it had been stopped.

Neither Rins, nor Lowes improved on their first attempts, allowing the field to close in on the duo, with Swiss duo of Dominique Aegerter and Thomas Luthi moving to within a tenth of Lowes.

The big challenge to Rins, however, came from reigning champion Johann Zarco, who was up on the Spaniard's session-best lap through the first three sectors after the chequered flag - before settling for runner-up at the line, two tenths down.

Lowes wound up taking third, ahead of Aegerter, Luthi and Nakagami, who denied Folger a second-row spot at the chequered flag.

Simone Corsi, at 0.571s off the leader, was the last rider within a second of pole in eighth, with Franco Morbidelli making up row three and Sandro Cortese in 10th.

It was a miserable outing for Alex Marquez, brother of two-time MotoGP champion Marc. The 2014 Moto3 champion battled for a top-10 spot early in the session, but slipped down to 21st by the end.

Qualifying results

Pos.	Rider	Team	Bike	Time
1	Alex Rins	Paginas Amarillas HP 40	Kalex	2:08.850
2	Johann Zarco	Ajo Motorsport	Kalex	2:09.066
3	Sam Lowes	Gresini Racing	Kalex	2:09.100
4	Dominique Aegerter	Technomag Racing Interwetten	Kalex	2:09.163
5	Thomas Luthi	Garage Plus Interwetten	Kalex	2:09.171
6	Takaaki Nakagami	Idemitsu Honda Team Asia	Kalex	2:09.206
7	Jonas Folger	Dynavolt Intact GP	Kalex	2:09.226
8	Simone Corsi	Speed Up Racing	Speed Up	2:09.421
9	Franco Morbidelli	Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS	Kalex	2:09.910
10	Sandro Cortese	Dynavolt Intact GP	Kalex	2:09.940
11	Julian Simon	QMMF Racing Team	Speed Up	2:09.999
12	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Forward Racing	Kalex	2:10.012
13	Marcel Schrötter	AGR Team	Kalex	2:10.039
14	Luis Salom	SAG Team	Kalex	2:10.103
15	Axel Pons	AGR Team	Kalex	2:10.236
16	Danny Kent	Leopard Racing	Kalex	2:10.274
17	Hafizh Syahrin	Petronas Raceline Malaysia Team Honda	Kalex	2:10.292
18	Xavier Simeon	QMMF Racing Team	Speed Up	2:10.299
19	Mattia Pasini	Italtrans Racing Team	Kalex	2:10.375
20	Miguel Oliveira	Leopard Racing	Kalex	2:10.405
21	Alex Marquez	Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS	Kalex	2:10.418
22	Luca Marini	Forward Racing	Kalex	2:10.453
23	Xavi Vierge	Tech 3 Racing	Tech 3	2:10.705
24	Ratthapark Wilairot	Idemitsu Honda Team Asia	Kalex	2:10.734
25	Isaac Viñales	Tech 3 Racing	Tech 3	2:11.297
26	Jesko Raffin	Sports-Millions-EMWE-SAG	Kalex	2:11.539
27	Robin Mulhauser	Technomag Racing Interwetten	Kalex	2:12.202
28	Alessandro Tonucci	Tasca Racing Scuderia Moto2	Kalex	2:12.801
29	Efren Vazquez	JPMoto Malaysia	Suter	2:12.962