2018 MotoGP

Phillip Island Qualifying

Saturday morning pace not as quick as Friday

Marc Marquez was the quickest rider in the FP3 session on Saturday morning ahead of Maverick Vinales and Jack Miller. However, on combined times, it was still Andrea Iannone fastest overall on the back of his 1m29.131 set on Friday afternoon.

In fact, the top five on combined times had all gone faster on Friday; Iannone, Petrucci, Vinales, Dovizioso and Zarco that leading quintet. Marquez had improved marginally in FP3, but not enough to break into that top five though. The same went for Jack Miller, the young Aussie remained in P7 on combined times ahead of Alex Rins.

Valentino Rossi got into the 1m29s for the first time this weekend in Saturday’s FP3 session to secure his spot straight through to Q2 along with Malaysian rookie Hafizh Syahrin.

Yamaha men quick

That meant that all four Yamaha machines were in the top ten, and thus all Yamaha riders were guaranteed to be in the first four rows on the grid tomorrow.

Honda men not so much

In contrast only one Honda was at that stage guaranteed a spot in Q2, that rider Marc Marquez. Dani Pedrosa was in P12, Franco Morbidelli P17, Takaaki Nakagami P18 and Tom Luthi in P20.

Despite their lack of recent wins it would appear, on those results, that the Yamaha is a better machine than the Honda here this weekend. Either that, or Yamaha’s riders are a lot faster than most of the Honda pilots…

MotoGP Combined FP1/FP2/FP3 Times

1. Andrea Iannone – Suzuki 1m29.131 (FP2)
2. Danilo Petrucci – Ducati 1m29.291 (FP2)
3. Maverick Vinales – Yamaha 1m29.354 (FP2)
4. Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati 1m29.406 (FP2)
5. Johann Zarco – Yamaha 1m29.686 (FP2)
6. Marc Marquez – Honda 1m29.714 (FP3)
7. Jack Miller – Ducati 1m29.792 (FP3)
8. Alex Rins – Suzuki 1m29.918 (FP2)
9. Valentino Rossi – Yamaha 1m29.974 (FP3)
10. Hafizh Syahrin – Yamaha 1m30.179 (FP2)
11. Pol Espargaro – KTM 1m30.221 (FP3)
12. Dani Pedrosa – Honda 1m30.259 (FP3)
13. Bradley Smith – KTM 1m30.346 (FP2)
14. Alvaro Bautista – Ducati 1m30.485 (FP3)
15. Karel Abraham – Ducati 1m30.720 (FP3)
16. Aleix Espargaro – Aprilia 1m30.736 (FP2)
17. Franco Morbidelli – Honda 1m30.787 (FP2)
18. Takaaki Nakagami – Honda 1m30.830 (FP2)
19. Xavier Simeon – Ducati 1m30.973 (FP3)
20. Tom Luthi – Honda 1m31.320 (FP3)
21. Jordi Torres – Ducati 1m31.570 (FP2)
22. Scott Redding – Aprilia 1m31.941 (FP1)
23. Mike Jones – Ducati 1m32.988 (FP3)

Free Practice 4

Early on in FP4 Jack Miller went down softly at turn four, the Queenslander was quickly up and going again but a less than auspicious start to his afternoon which saw him return to the pits after the crash.

Halfway through FP4 no rider had dipped back into the 1m29s. Rossi looked confident and was leading most of the first half of the session before being demoted by Andrea Iannone. The Suzuki man the first rider into the 1m29s on his seventh lap of the session, 1m29.954, he then backed that up with a 1m29.913 as Vinales then moved up to second place, pushing his teammate back to third.

Jack Miller finally made it back out on track when there was ten-minutes remaining in the FP4 session.

Iannone again improved his time marginally, a 1m29.905 to remain on top of FP4. A few laps later he went quicker again, 1m29.604, there were three-minutes remaining when he crossed the stripe. That proved good enough for Iannone to top the session by half-a-second.

Mike Jones had dipped into the 1m32s on Saturday morning in FP3 but set a best of 1m33.237 in FP4.

MotoGP FP4 Times

MotoGP Qualifying

The Q1 session got underway under cloudy skies a little after 1600 on Saturday afternoon. Alvaro Bautista and Karel Abraham were 1-2 with five-minutes remaining in the session, Bautista leading on 1m30.344.

In the final minutes things stepped up another gear. Alvaro Bautista the first to drop in a 1m29 to strengthen his claim on a promotion through to the Q2 session. Pol Espargaro then went P2 on 1m30.105 and that time remained good enough to put the KTM man through to Q2 despite a determined effort by Karel Abraham.

Mike Jones put his best time of the weekend thus far in that Q1 session with a 1m32.639 on the Angel Nieto Ducati, but that was only good enough for the last position on the grid, 1.3-seconds behind Scott Redding.

The stars of MotoGP started rolling out of pit-lane for the grid deciding Q2 session at 1635, just as it looked as though rain clouds were gathering beyond the cliffs below the circuit.

Track temperature was lower today which had been causing riders problems with front tyre temperature on the rarely used right-hand side of the front hoop. This is why so many riders had failed to improve on their Friday times.

Sure enough, just as riders left their pit-boxes on slicks a few rain drops started appearing at some points of the circuit. Now the riders had to either decide to throw caution to the wind a little, and go for a time as soon as possible in the expectation that it might start raining properly. There were lots of concerned faces and confusion in pit-lane, every which way was going to be a gamble…

Jack Miller led early on before being eclipsed by Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro. Miller though went back on top after the next lap, a 1m30.884 but then was quickly shuffled back to P7 by Marquez, Vinales, Zarco, Dovizioso, Espargaro, and Rins.

Marquez then went top with 1m29.742, Vinales and Zarco also in the 29s. Miller went back up to P4 with a 1m30.140.

Iannone then top with ten-minutes remaining, a 1m29.712.  Zarco then knocked him off after putting in a 1m29.705.

Alvaro Bautista went down at turn ten.

Marquez back on top with seven-minutes remaining, a 1m29.199 the second fastest time of the weekend overall. The only quicker lap had been set by Iannone in practice on Friday.

Then just as riders exited pit-lane for their final time attack spots of rain started appearing once again at various points of the circuit. That precipitation ruined the final run for a lot of the riders, and allowed Marquez’ time to stand and the Spaniard awarded pole.

Jack Miller and Maverick Vinales did not hold back despite the drizzle but there were risks went unrewarded. Ultimately Vinales had to settle for P2 on the back of his earlier time while Zarco rounded out the front row.

Andrea Iannone heads the second row but is certainly one to watch as the Suzuki man has put in a huge number of very fast laps this weekend across almost every session. He is the dark horse for tomorrow. His teammate Alex Rins will start alongside him from P5 while Jack Miller rounds out the second row and was the fastest qualifying Ducati.

Valentino Rossi heads the third row alongside Danilo Petrucci and Andrea Dovizioso while Hafizh Syahrin rounds out the top ten.

MotoGP 2018 – Phillip Island – MotoGP Qualifying Results

1. Marc Marquez – Honda 1m29.199
2. Maverick Vinales – Yamaha 1m29.509
3. Johann Zarco – Yamaha 1m29.705
4. Andrea Iannone – Suzuki 1m29.712
5. Alex Rins – Suzuki 1m30.026
6. Jack Miller – Ducati 1m30.140
7. Valentino Rossi – Yamaha 1m30.270
8. Danilo Petrucci – Ducati 1m30.328
9. Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati 1m30.519
10. Hafizh Syahrin – Yamaha 1m30.593
11. Pol Espargaro – KTM 1m30.640
12. Alvaro Bautista – Ducati 1m32.367
13. Karel Abraham – Ducati 1m30.174 (Q1)
14. Takaaki Nakagami – Honda 1m30.452 (Q1)
15. Franco Morbidelli – Honda 1m30.518 (Q1)
16. Bradley Smith – KTM 1m30.646 (Q1)
17. Xavier Simeon – Ducati 1m30.679 (Q1)
18. Dani Pedrosa – Honda 1m30.770 (Q1)
19. Aleix Espargaro – Aprilia 1m30.911 (Q1)
20. Tom Luthi – Honda 1m30.958 (Q1)
21. Jordi Torres – Ducati 1m31.141 (Q1)
22. Scott Redding – Aprilia 1m31.309 (Q1)
23. Mike Jones – Ducati 1m32.639 (Q1)

Moto2

Mattia Pasini took pole in the Moto2 category ahead of Marcel Schrotter while Xavi Vierge rounded out the front row ahead of Aegerter, Binder and Quartararo.

Remy Gardner was a bit battered and bruised from his massive tumble yesterday and his teammate for this round, fellow Australian Bryan Staring, was similarly bruised after being taken out by another rider on Friday.

Remy Gardner – P15

“We kind of bounced back today from a pretty disastrous day yesterday. I woke up not feeling too bad. I feel like we could have put ourselves in top 10 in Qualifying, but I was struggling to find a toe on the last exit. I still think we’ve got a very good pace and I still believe we can be quite strong for tomorrow. I feel like it can be a truly fun race from P15.”

Gardner ended qualifying in 15th place while Staring was 27th.

Bryan Staring – P27

“Actually for the first time this weekend, I’m disappointed with my performance, only because it was Qualifying and I couldn’t manage to take a step forward with the lap time. But also fro what ever reason, which we don’t understand yet, I had a lot of chatter in the front of the bike for the final run, so that didn’t help the situation in fact. Anyway, with other than chatter we’ve got the bike to the best it’s been to me all weekend and I really enjoyed working with the guys that worked hard for me. I’m disappointed with the performance, but the race is tomorrow. We’ve still got a Warm Up to take home yet and see what we can do.”

MotoGP 2018 – Phillip Island – Moto2 Qualifying Results

Moto3

Jorge Martin took Moto3 pole in what was a fairly spread out field for the 250cc four-stroke machines. More than half-a-second covering the top trio with Binder second quickest and Sasaki rounding out the front row.

Jorge Martin

“We managed to be competitive already this morning on wet track, which is something we had struggled to do in Japan. Despite the strong wind, we showed a good pace on the dry this afternoon despite lapping on our own and we were able to make a final decision on the tyre to use tomorrow. We also took pole position in the process, so it has definitely been a positive day for us. We need to stay focused though, as points are earned tomorrow.”

MotoGP 2018 – Phillip Island – Moto3 Qualifying Results