Aron Canet mastered the new two session qualifying format to fly to the opening Moto3 pole of the 2019 season under the floodlights in Qatar.

After topping the free practice sessions, Canet came into qualifying as the favourite for the pole position and the Spaniard took his time in making his way onto track in the new two-session format.

Knowing many would want to follow him out onto track, the KTM man went out with Vicente Perez and John McPhee – who successfully came through Q1 - and worked together on providing a slipstream rather than slowing each other down.

Canet only needed one flying lap to take the top spot and did so with a 2:05.883, two tenths of a second clear of second placed Lorenzo Dalla Porta on his Leopard Honda. Kaito Toba will round out the front row and the Japanese rider will feel aggrieved that he couldn’t take the pole position when a hot lap was running by Jakub Kornfiel.

McPhee will head the second row in fourth and will be joined by Nico Antonelli – who suffered an early spill – and Albert Arenas. Tony Arbolino will start from seventh with another Q1 graduate Celestino Vietti in eighth and Perez ninth.

Raul Fernandez will start from tenth and one spot ahead of the returning Romano Fenati, whose Snipers Team dropped a clanger on the first attempt of the new format, sending the Italian out without enough time to complete an out lap, leaving him languishing down on eleventh on the grid. The recently repaired Gabi Rodrigo will round out the fourth row, just under a second off the pole time.

Kazuki Masaki will be starting from thirteenth alongside Kornfiel and Ai Ogura on the fifth row.