After a thrilling day’s practice Frenchman Johann Zarco sits on pole position ahead of arch rival and championship leader Lorenzo Savadori. Completing the front row are American Cameron Beaubier and Spain’s Christian Trabalon. Practice at Sachsenring in Northern Germany for the fifth round of the eight race Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup was blessed with a dry track all day. Thanks to only minor falls twenty three Rookies will line up for Saturday’s race at 16:15. “That was great said Zarco,” I have to thank my mechanic and the WP engineer. Some changes to the rear suspension after the first session really helped and I could go quicker and quicker as I got more confident with the track. I have just got to try and make a good start tomorrow and try to hang on to the lead.” concluded the Frenchman who lies second in the championship chase. “That was so much fun,” said Beaubier, “It’s a great track but slippery, I was sliding around everywhere. It is not easy to get it right, especially the first section. It is so tight and all the corners are close together, you just have to be on the right line.” Second Qualifier Savadori agreed that the track demanded a lot. “I like it but it is not easy to get right. For me the hardest thing is that a lot of the fast corners have blind exits, going in you just do not know how much track there is to use.” The morning non qualifying session was shortened to twenty minutes because of track cleaning and was even shorter for American Cameron Beaubier who’s bike stopped at the end of lap one. That still left two thirty minute timed session in the afternoon. In the first session three of the Germans were setting the early pace; Lucy Gloeckner, Markus Reiterberger and Daniel Kartheininger. Fellow countryman Christoph Schönberger was more cautious, back on the bike after recovering from the broken left collarbone he sustained in a mountain bike accident. Deane Browne fell early in the first afternoon session due to mechanical problems, something that he had also done in the morning and banged his right elbow both times. Another early afternoon faller was Assen podium man Kris Turner. “I tried to go around Mossey and he was late turning in so I lost the front trying to keep it on the track going up the hill,” said the American, dusty but unhurt. As the pace quickened it was Gloeckner and Spaniard Cristian Trabalon pushing things along closely followed by Johann Zarco and Spain’s Luis Salom. With eight minutes remaining Trabalon became the first rider into the 1m 32 second bracket and really set the standard. With less than five minutes to go Kartheininger was second fastest but crashed trying to make up the half second deficit to Trabalon. Further down the field Czech Lukas Sembera also fell. Swede Robert Gull was in the picture throughout the session and moved to third with two minutes to go, just ahead of Championship leader Lorenzo Savadori who had made his way steadily up the leaderboard through the period. Frenchman Cyril Carrillo was fifth ahead of Salom and Gloeckner. Beaubier was the first of the front runners to improve on his previous session time and he managed that on lap three, moving himself up to fourth. Then the official live timing system failed to update to the monitors so it was a case of waiting for the end of the session to see who was quickest. With half the session run Carrillo’s bike stopped with a technical problem. Suddenly with three minutes remaining the timing came back. By then Zarco was fastest ahead of Savadori and Beaubier.