Superb seventh consecutive Sachsenring pole for Marquez; Pedrosa improves his speed

Marc Marquez’s incredible 1’21.160 lap time in today’s qualifying session at a much warmer and sunnier Sachsenring circuit earned him the 62nd pole of his career and the seventh in a row at the German track across all classes.

The Repsol Honda man has been among the top three in widely varying conditions this weekend, and he made a further step forward in qualifying after finalizing some additional details to the settings of his RC213V.

Teammate Dani Pedrosa also took advantage of today’s better conditions to consistently improve his pace. In FP3 he knocked two seconds off his time from the opening day, and he set a very fast pace in FP4. Only in qualifying was he unable to connect all the dots, and he had to settle for 10th position, though just over two tenths of a second off the front row. However, his strong race pace makes him confidant that he’ll be able to fight in tomorrow’s race.


Marc Marquez - Pole position 1'21.160

“I’m happy to have set the fastest time today, because we’re better here than at other circuits. I have a fairly good pace and am riding comfortably. The final free-practice session wasn’t one of the best of the weekend, as I didn’t feel completely right but we made a change for the qualifying session, which went much better. We need to study the data this afternoon, but in qualifying we managed to take that step forward that we needed. We'll see what happens tomorrow, because the weather forecast is for conditions to be quite unstable. In any case, we’ll try to finish on the podium, which is our goal. It seems that Valentino [Rossi] is very strong, and we’ll also have to keep Dani [Pedrosa] in mind; I don’t know what happened to him in qualifying, but his pace is very close to ours and he’s very strong here.”

Dani Pedrosa - 10th 1'21.892

“It’s a pity we weren’t able to be faster in qualifying after having been so fast in the free practices. I wasn’t able to make a big enough improvement to the lap time I had set with used tyres, and honestly I don’t know why. It’s not good to be that far back on the grid at this track because the first part is quite tight, but we need to focus on the race anyway. We’ll have to get a good start, be fast on the first lap and gain as many positions as possible, because our pace is good and the race is long. Of course it won’t be easy—we also have to see what the weather will be like—but we’ll stay positive and try to do our best.”


1   - MARQUEZ Marc 93 SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 1'21.160
2   - BARBERA Hector 8 SPA Avintia Racing Ducati 1'21.572
3   - ROSSI Valentino 46 ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 1'21.666
4   - PETRUCCI Danilo 9 ITA Octo Pramac Racing Ducati 1'21.666
5   - ESPARGARO Pol 44 SPA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 1'21.738
6   - VINALES Maverick 25 SPA Team Suzuki Ecstar Suzuki 1'21.784
7   - DOVIZIOSO Andrea 4 ITA Ducati Team Ducati 1'21.858
8   - ESPARGARO Aleix 41 SPA Team Suzuki Ecstar Suzuki 1'21.883
9   - IANNONE Andrea 29 ITA Ducati Team Ducati 1'21.890
10 - PEDROSA Dani 26 SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 1'21.892
11 - LORENZO Jorge 99 SPA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 1'22.088
12 - HERNANDEZ Yonny 68 COL Aspar MotoGP Team Ducati 1'22.346
13 - CRUTCHLOW Cal 35 GBR LCR Honda Honda 1'21.783
14 - SMITH Bradley 38 GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 1'21.994
15 - REDDING Scott 45 GBR Octo Pramac Racing Ducati 1'22.236
16 - MILLER Jack 43 AUS Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda 1'22.382
17 - BRADL Stefan 6 GER Aprilia Racing Team Gresini Aprilia 1'22.493
18 - LAVERTY Eugene 50 IRE Aspar MotoGP Team Ducati 1'22.567
19 - BAUTISTA Alvaro 19 SPA Aprilia Racing Team Gresini Aprilia 1'22.670
20 - BAZ Loris 76 FRA Avintia Racing Ducati 1'22.860
21 - RABAT Tito 53 SPA Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda 1'23.075