Aussie riders break records with front row starts in Moto2™ and Moto3™

Australian racers Joel Kelso and Senna Agius have flown the Australian flag high at Phillip Island during Qualifying for their Moto3™ and Moto2™ Grands Prix at the Liqui Moly Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix 2025.

Joel Kelso got the Qualifying sessions off on the right foot for the LevelUp MTA KTM team, with his first pole position of the 2024 season. The Darwin racer watched as World Champion Jose Antonio Rueda set the pace in the opening laps of Q2, but Kelso took a staggering 0.4s off the Spaniard’s best time and lowered the Moto3 lap record to a 1m34.056s, to edge out Rueda by 0.091s and take his sixth consecutive front row start.

“I saw Jack Miller put it on the front row before so I had to do it,” said Kelso, who was 1.3 seconds faster than the pole time from just a year ago.

“I knew I had to send it out there to get the pole position. My teammate gave me a tow down the straight and that made it a lot easier.”

Rueda will be hard to beat from second on the grid, and will have to fight off the Hondas of Luca Lunetta and Tai Furusato. Kelso’s teammate Matteo Bertelli is next after advancing from Q1, in which he went 1s faster than his best Practice time from Friday.

One rider who had a bad Saturday was David Almansa. The Leopard Honda rider could only get to 17th place in the session and the second-placed rider in the championship will have a lot of work to do come Sunday.

In Moto2 Agius and Diogo Moreira fought a two-man war over pole position. The Brazilian set the pace at the start of the session with a 1m29.817s early on, to become the first rider to break the 90-second barrier on a Moto2 bike.

Agius and his Liqui Moly Dynavolt Kalex lost no time responding with a time of 1m29.828s to lock away second place, though on his Italtrans Kalex Moreira went faster again, on a lap that was disallowed by a yellow flag.

Third fastest was Manuel Gonzales, who had a huge out-of-the-seat moment in the middle of Doohan Corner on his first lap, which left him only in seventh. But the last moments of the session saw Gonzales put the other Liqui Moly Dynavolt Kalex onto the front row, adding a lot of spice to the title showdown.

“It’s tight,” Agius said. “I made a couple of mistakes and I missed it by nothing. A 29 on a Moto2 bike around here is amazing, it’s pretty tapped. I would be lying if I said I did not want to pole!”

Fourth fastest was Briton Jake Dixon (Elf VDS) ahead of Dani Holgado (CFMoto Aspar) and David Alonso. Aron Canet mounted the best comeback of the session, after tumbling off his Kalex at Miller Corner before he registered a time at all. Only frantic work by his Fantic crew got his bike repaired in time for him to vault to seventh in the final moments of the session.