Moto2 Sepang: Holgado flies to pole, while battered championship leader Gonzalez is only ninth—and what about Guevara?

Daniel Holgado takes pole, but the real verdict from the Sepang Moto2 qualifying session concerns the title race. Izan Guevara will start from the front row, while championship leader Manuel Gonzalez, with a slim 5.5-point advantage, will line up ninth with a sore right foot after Friday’s crash.

It was a turnaround from the opening day, when the Intact rider topped the timesheets with a 2:03.737, as we reported in Moto2 Sepang, Gonzalez responds to Guevara: the leader tops Practice, his rival is fourth. Twenty-four hours later, the picture had changed.

The Aspar rider pulled clear of the field with a 2:02.875, set in the final time attack as the track temperature reached 50 degrees. His time was just 17 thousandths off the circuit record, which he already holds from his 2025 pole lap (2:02.858). According to Sky Sport, this is Holgado’s sixth career pole and his second of the season. QJMotor’s Angel Piqueras was second, 0.541 seconds back, while Guevara ended the session six tenths off the pace.

David Alonso, who came through Q1, posted the fourth-fastest time, ahead of Alonso Lopez and Collin Veijer on the second row. Seeing his teammate at the top of the standings is unlikely to have pleased the Colombian, given the extremely strained relationship between the two. Alex Escrig, who set the fastest lap of the weekend up to that point in Q1 (2:03.459), will start on the third row alongside David Munoz and Gonzalez. Ivan Ortola rounds out the top 10.

Gonzalez climbed onto his bike limping for his final attempt. His decisive lap came to nothing when David Alonso moved over without giving him a tow: the championship leader slipped from sixth to ninth. Intact team manager Jürgen Lingg cannot predict how Gonzalez’s foot will hold up in the long race under Malaysia’s tropical heat.

The Indonesian GP offers some hope: Gonzalez had also been forced to fight his way back through the field there and claimed a podium, though he finished behind Guevara, who took another five points off him on that occasion. For the future MotoGP rider with Pramac, Sepang is a chance to seize the championship lead.

No Italian rider made the top 10. The best-placed was Tony Arbolino in 17th, followed by Luca Lunetta, who crashed in Q1, in 18th. Celestino Vietti made it through Q1 but crashed at Turn 15 on his first flying lap in Q2 and, with a three-place penalty, will start 21st. Matteo Ferrari will start last, in 28th. The race is scheduled for Sunday at 6:15 a.m. Italian time: Gonzalez faces a fight back against both his rival and the pain.

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