American Racing’s Cameron Beaubier earned a stunning pole position today in Moto2 qualifying for tomorrow’s Red Bull Grand Prix of The Americas with the five-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion smashing the lap record with his 2:08.751 on a sunny Saturday in Texas.
Beaubier will start his 37th career Moto2 Grand Prix on Sunday and he’ll do so from pole position after besting Mooney VR46 Racing’s Celestino Vietti by .340 of a second and Firebox HP40’s Aron Canet by a tick over a half second. Those three will make up the front row for tomorrow’s fourth round of the World Championship.
“I was not expecting pole out of there,” Beaubier said. “My goal was to qualify on the first two rows so that way I could have a clean start tomorrow. Man, I just felt hooked up. The American Racing boys have been working so hard this year and especially this weekend. I know this track was good for me last year and I know we could put on a good showing this year. Obviously, it’s qualifying, and I don’t want to get too excited, but it feels so good after the struggles we went through last year. There were definitely a lot more lows than highs, but we’re trucking along and this year we’ve been outside the top 10, right inside the top 10, floating thereabouts and it definitely motivated me coming here.
“Rolling around the track on the cool-down lap and seeing the fans go crazy, it means everything to me.”
Italtrans Racing’s Joe Roberts, the last American to sit on pole position in the Moto2 class, end the day 16th with his best of 2:10.325 coming on his fourth of seven laps. Roberts will start tomorrow’s race from the sixth row of the grid.
Beaubier’s teammate Sean Dylan Kelly, the 2021 MotoAmerica Supersport Champion, will start the race from row 10 after qualifying 28th. Kelly suffered a painful highside yesterday and is beaten and bruised.
