Nico Antonelli snatched pole position from under the nose of Jorge Martin for tomorrow's Moto3 race in Qatar by 0.001s at Losail this afternoon to give the Paolo Simoncelli's SIC58 team the perfect start to 2018.
Martin was sitting at the top of the timesheet with a 2'06.996 set with the hard rear Dunlop and the paddock was expecting the Gresini man to find a chunk of time to take pole but some canny slipstreaming by Antonelli saw him set a 2'06.364 for top spot.
Martin, who had Ayumi Sasaki in tow, had to punch his own hole in the air and lost six-tenths of a second between the last corner and the line meaning his best was 2'06.365. Gabriel Rodrigo occupies the final front-row spot with Sasaki at the head of row two.
He is joined by Kaito Toba and Marco Bezzecchi with Aron Canet in seventh place. Philipp Oettl and Lorenzo Dalla Porto bagged eighth and ninth while an off-track excursion from Enea Bastiannani on his last hot lap saw him slip to tenth.
Britain's John McPhee finished in 12th, just behind Jakub Kornfeil.
