VNE Snipers Honda man Tony Arbolino flew to his third pole position of 2019 with a stunning lap in monsoon conditions around Brno for Moto3 qualifying in the Czech Republic.

The Italian had shown good pace in the wet morning session, and it wasn’t long until he appeared to be one of the man capable of producing a time to get him on pole position. With rain coming down, there were no games from the teams, with all teams filling their bikes up, putting wet tyres on and going out to try and post the best time possible.

Early on it was John McPhee who found himself fastest, with Q1 fastest man Raul Fernandez and Arbolino not far behind. With a little over five minutes remaining, Arbolino hooked his Honda up perfectly and went a second faster than McPhee’s best time of the session.

Through the final five minutes, all riders improved, but it was still those three who were battling for the pole. With lap times falling with each lap, it could’ve been a case of the last man of the three would take the pole position.

However, on his final lap, Fernandez succumbed to the wet conditions, leaving Arbolino needing to get out of the throttle. Despite this, McPhee couldn’t capitalise on the opportunity, with his final lap still 0.4 seconds off of Arbolino’s pole time from his previous lap.

Fernandez’ late crash saw him not only fail to get pole position, but also saw him fall off the front row, with SIC 58 Squadra Corse duo Nico Antonelli and Tatsuki Suzuki qualifying in third and fourth respectively, leaving the KTM man to start from the middle of the second row. Aron Canet will start from sixth on his Max Racing Team KTM, after qualifying just 0.078 seconds behind his compatriot.

Kazak rider Makar Yurchenko will head the third row in seventh, with Jaume Masia and Ai Ogura joining him on row three in eighth and ninth places respectively.

Alonso Lopez will start from tenth, with Romano Fenati and Kaito Toba rounding out the front four rows.

It was a session to forget for World Championship leader Lorenzo Dalla Porta, with the Italian starting way down in seventeenth position.