Marc Marquez destroys his own record on way to Aragon pole
Repsol Honda’s Marquez set the fastest ever lap by a MotoGP bike around the 5km MotorLand Aragon circuit, as he claimed his 29th premier class pole position in a thrilling Q2 session. The Spaniard made the most of ideal conditions (Track temp. 38˚C) at the Gran Premio Movistar de Aragón to set a 1’46.635 on his first run to completely annihilate his own 2014 Pole Record (1’47.187) in the process by over half a second. The reigning MotoGP World Champion utilised a two-stop strategy and appeared to be going even quicker on his third run before he lost the front at turn 2, walking away unhurt.
Marc Marquez – 1st 1’46.635 – “I did not expect that time on my first lap, and it was a nice surprise! With the second tyre I made a small mistake and could not improve it, and with the third I went too hard on the wrong corner and I had a small crash. This morning we made a big step forward with the setup and now we are more competitive. We will try to fight for victory from the first lap of the race tomorrow. I think we’ve done a great job and we are happy with this pole position.”
Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo, who had earlier topped FP3 after dominating on Friday, was the only rider to get within 0.5s of Marquez. Lorenzo finished 0.108s off the pace of Marquez, as he attempts to close the 23-point gap in the standings to his teammate Valentino Rossi. Lorenzo was the only other rider to break the 1’47 barrier as he claimed his 11th front row start of the season and sixth in a row.
Jorge Lorenzo – 2nd / 1’46.743 / 8 laps – “When I looked at my times I was very happy, because it’s always difficult to fight for the pole position. Our rivals’ bikes are probably a bit more explosive than the Yamaha and especially this track is usually better for them. To be able to be in the 1’46.7 is unbelievable, we improved our old record here by more than a second, so I’m very proud about that and happy with the work we’ve done throughout the weekend and this particular lap. We need to improve the last details of the bike this afternoon for tomorrow, but in general I like it a lot how it behaves all around the track, so the team did a great job with the setting.”
Ducati Team’s Andrea Iannone pulled off the surprise of the day to complete the front row, despite riding through the pain barrier. The Italian re-dislocated his left shoulder in a training accident after Misano but managed to set a time good enough to secure his fourth front row start of the season and first since Mugello. Incredibly though, he was over half a second off the pace off Marquez, as 0.543s separated the top three riders.
Andrea Iannone – P3 – 1’47.178 – “Today was rather a difficult day for me, but in the end also very satisfying. Before coming to Aragón, I was worried about the pain in my shoulder, but yesterday I was able to manage the situation by not using 100% of my strength, and as a result today I was able to push even harder, improving on each exit. We did an excellent job together with my team, with the intention of getting into qualifying. Tomorrow however it will be a tough race, but the positive thing is that I still haven’t used any pain-killers, and in any case I think that the Clinica Mobile will be able to help me. I want to thank the whole team and above all Gigi Dall’Igna for helping me to get this result today.”
Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Pol Espargaro (+0.699s) put in a sensational lap to start from the front of the second row in fourth as the leading Satellite rider. This equalled the Spaniard’s best qualifying performance of the season at Jerez.
Pol Espargaro – 4th / 1’47.334 / 7 laps – “Fourth position is definitely a positive end to today’s qualifying and it is a promising starting point for the upcoming race. Yet, it hasn’t been an easy day as we had to face some difficulties with a lack of grip during FP4 when I ran on a used rear tyre. Afterwards, during the qualifying with the two new rubbers, the conditions changed completely and I felt much more confident. I was searching for the limit a bit during my first run and then I gave it everything I had on the second tyre and the final result is really pleasing. This is even more important as the first corner here is a bit dangerous and some other turns in the opening sector are tricky regarding the braking at the start of the race, so it’s truly positive to be able to kick off proceedings from the front of the field.”
Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa (+0.722s) had topped the earlier FP4 session but will start Sunday’s race from fifth. Pedrosa had found himself on the provisional front row after the first run but could only improve by three-hundredths of a second on his second run and will have to start from the middle of the second row.
Dani Pedrosa 5th 1’47.357 – “Today we were able to improve the setup of the bike and our plan of which tyres to use in tomorrow’s race has become a little clearer. However in the qualifying session we had some problems; the front was stepping out a bit and I was close to crashing several times, which in the end prevented us from going as fast as we wanted. We will try to have a good start tomorrow to be in the battle from the beginning.”
Movistar Yamaha’s championship leader Rossi (+0.857s) was staring down the barrel of a third row start before he managed to respond on his final lap to set a time good enough for sixth. The nine-time World Champion found himself 0.749s off the pace off his closest rival Lorenzo in what was his worst Qualifying performance since Indianapolis.
Valentino Rossi – 6th / 1’47.492 / 7 laps – “Today was a bit more difficult, especially in the afternoon, the morning was not so bad. My pace was also quite good, but with a higher temperature I suffered a lot with the tyres, because after some laps I slid too much and wasn’t able to find the right rhythm, so we have to work and try to improve the balance so we can enter the corner with better braking. During tomorrow’s warm up we will try to improve the setup and also the pace. My rivals are very fast, so this makes everything a bit more difficult but we will try.”
Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Aleix Espargaro made use of the minor engine upgrade brought by his team to Aragon to set the seventh fastest time in his best qualifying performance since the Sachsenring.
Aleix Espargaro – P7 – “It’s good to be back in the top group. After yesterday I didn’t feel very comfortable at all while this morning we could make a good improvement. It is important to start from seventh place, it is more like the place where I think we deserve to be and will allow me to be immediately up to the front of the pack. In fact today’s qualifying was very, very hard, the circuit record was completely destroyed and I’m on the third row although I am only 0.4s from the front row. This means that we found a proper way to proceed and we are getting back closer to the top. Finally my pace is pretty much the same as other middle pack riders, therefore I am confident that tomorrow we can make a positive race.”
LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow will start from the middle of the third row, as he lost out to Espargaro by just 0.001s. The British rider improved from 13th on the combined timesheets on Friday to finish in tenth ahead of Danilo Petrucci on the Octo Pramac Racing Ducati. Petrucci earlier had made it through from Q1 with his teammate Yonny Hernandez at the expense of Andrea Dovizioso on the Factory Ducati, who will be forced to start from 13th.
Cal Crutchlow – P8 – 1’47.574 – “I’m pleased with how it went, although I think we should have been a couple of places higher on the grid, these guys with the soft tyre are able to do a better lap time and gain an advantage. To be honest I didn’t put it together particularly well today, we did ok and now we’ll just have to improve tomorrow’s race – but I’m excited and looking forward to it. We need to improve in sector one, I thought our consistency was good but we just need a little bit more pace. Overall on the lap we were quite good, but we were not quite fast enough there and hopefully that won’t be the story after tomorrow’s race.”
Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Bradley Smith recovered from an earlier crash at turn 5 in FP3 to complete the top ten, while Hernandez and the second Suzuki GSX-RR of Maverick Viñales round out the fourth row.
Bradley Smith – 10th / 1’47.830 / 8 laps – “Although my grid position is a little further back from where I have been qualifying recently, the weekend has been going well and I am quite positive about getting into the top six tomorrow in the race. I felt comfortable as soon as we got running here, even though I had a little fall this morning. To be honest, we still don’t know exactly what happened, but one possible reason is that the tyres weren’t up to temperature yet. Anyway, in Q2 I expected to do a 47.8 or a 47.9 lap time and I was actually able to do this time for three laps consistently which bodes well for the race. However, today we were missing that last 0.4 of a second, which would have resulted in me scoring a strong qualifying position. We need to analyse a few more details tomorrow in the warm up and then finalise our plan for the race. We will then go from there and hopefully I will be able to get in the mix after a good start.”
Maverick Viñales – P12 – “Finally we found some directions to work in and we could make a very important step forward. Yesterday we lost pretty much all the day because we couldn’t find the proper direction, while today we managed to be very competitive. This pays back our efforts and re-ignites our positive expectations. Of course today I had to focus on qualifying, in FP3 I thought to be as fast as possible to hit direct access to Q2 and in qualifying as well I focused on getting the best place available. This means that we couldn’t finalise the work for the consistent race pace, probably we still miss something to be relaxed and confident, but we still have the warm-up to try to find something more and consolidate our pace. The race will be tough, the top riders are doing very well but also the middle pack is very competitive. We need to get as many points as possible for the championship therefore we will work hard in warm-up to finalise the race-pace set-up and try to be aggressive in the race itself.”
Today proved to be a bit more difficult for Andrea Dovizioso, who in FP3 was unable to make the best of the soft rear tyre he fitted towards the end of the session, and he finished in eleventh place, which meant he had to take part in Q1. After a good performance in FP4, in which he finished fifth, the rider from Forlì tackled the first qualifying session. Unfortunately his best time of 1’48.294, third-quickest, was not sufficient to gain entry into Q2, and so Dovizioso finished the day in thirteenth place and will have to start from row 5 of the grid.
Andrea Dovizioso – P13 – 1’48.294 – “It was a real pity today, because if we had managed to get into Q2 I think we could have been able to do a good qualifying session and get a place on the first three rows. I didn’t do a perfect lap in Q1 because in the first two corners the rear tyre gave me the impression that it wasn’t at the right temperature, even though I was sure I had bedded it in well. Sometimes you don’t get a perfect tyre, but even without this we could have got a better result even though I had the impression that my time was good enough to get into Q2. In FP4 we improved and our pace is now good enough for me to stay just behind the leading group. A better qualifying position would have been important, but now the only thing to do is to try and make up some places with a good start.”
Scott Redding will start from 14th position on the grid, after narrowly missing out on a place in the final qualifying shootout this afternoon. The 22-year-old Briton was disappointed to finish only fourth in the first qualifying practice, as he felt he had a good feeling with the bike and went into the session certain he could challenge for a top two position and a place in the all-important QP2.
Scott Redding – P14 – 1’48.674 – “The feeling is okay with the bike but, once again, the lap time just isn’t there. Sometimes I feel that we can get the lap time but not the rhythm. Here at Aragon I feel that we have the rhythm but the lap time definitely isn’t there. This is the most frustrating thing for me. I’ll have to see what happens in the race tomorrow but it’s frustrating when you should be going through to QP2 but you can’t. Starting from the fifth row makes things more difficult for tomorrow, but the race is long, so I need to see how things pan out.”
Eugene Laverty (Aspar MotoGP Team) is the leading Open class rider in 15th in his best qualifying performance since Argentina.
His teammate Nicky Hayden qualified in 16th despite riding with a broken thumb while Australian Jack Miller will start from the middle of row seven in 20th.
Miller acknowledged that he had been unable to make much progress over the course of the weekend on a soft tyre. As such he will now opt to use a hard tyre in Sunday’s race and is hopeful it will prove beneficial in the closing stages.
Jack Miller 20th – 1’49.436 – “We’ve been struggling on the soft tyre as we just don’t have enough pace. All weekend on the soft we’ve been pushing hard but I just can’t quite get comfortable at all. I’m going to use the hard tomorrow in the race and set up for a long distance run. We should be alright if we get a decent start, we’ll just have to see where we are and how we can compete in the middle stages and then hopefully the tyre should help us towards the end of the race.”
MotoGP Qualifying Results
Rabat rules Moto2 Qualifying
EG 0,0 Marc VDS’s Rabat set a 1’52.232 in the glorious sunshine at MotorLand Aragon to re-write history and take over a second off Marc Marquez’s 2011 Pole Record (1’53.296). Amazingly, Rabat managed 14 laps under the old record and in the process set the fastest ever lap by a Moto2 bike around the Alcaniz track to claim his 15th career Moto2 pole position.
Paginas Amarillas HP40’s Alex Rins was just 0.035s off the pace of the reigning Moto2 World Champion, as he secured his seventh front row start of the season in an incredibly close session that saw less than a second separate the top fifteen riders. The current championship leader Johann Zarco completed the front row, although he was 0.427s off the pace of Rabat. The Frenchman has a 93-point advantage over Rabat and can lift the title on Sunday if results go his way.
Speed Up Racing’s Sam Lowes (+0.440s) recovered from a nasty looking crash at turn 17 halfway through the session to set a time good enough for fourth on his very last lap that put him ahead of Takaaki Nakagami. Idemitsu Honda Team Asia’s Nakagami had been on the provisional front row on combined times after FP3 and he managed to equal his best qualifying performance of the season to start from fifth.
Rabat’s rookie teammate Alex Marquez will start from sixth, the Spaniard’s best ever Moto2 grid position. AGR Team’s Jonas Folger heads up the third row ahead of Thomas Luthi (Derendinger Racing Interwetten) and his teammate Axel Pons, while Sandro Cortese (Dynavolt Intact GP) completed the top ten.
Mika Kallio impressed on his debut for the Forward Racing team as he out-qualified his teammate Julian Simon (16th) in fifteenth. Kallio’s replacement in the Italtrans Racing Team, Federico Caricasulo, has pulled out of the rest of the weekend due to an injured AC joint sustained at the WorldSBK round in Jerez, which he aggravated on Friday in a crash in FP1. Edgar Pons was making his debut for the Italtrans Racing Team this weekend and ended the session in 23rd.
Moto2 Qualifying Results
Bastianini makes it back-to-back Moto3 pole positions
Gresini Racing Team Moto3’s Bastianini set a 1’57.755 to record the fastest ever Moto3 lap around the MotorLand Aragon circuit on his way to taking pole at the Gran Premio Movistar de Aragón. He beat both Alex Rins’ Pole Record (1’58.318) and Juanfran Guevara’s outright Fastest Lap record (1’57.930) in the process.
The 17-year-old Italian, who took his maiden Moto3 victory last time out at Misano, ended the session 0.200s ahead of nearest rival, Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Miguel Oliveira. Oliveira secured his fifth front row start of 2015 in a session where the slipstream played a major role, especially down the long back straight.
Leopard Racing’s Kent (+0.201s), who has a 55-point lead over Bastianini in the standings, left it late to secure his 11th front row start of the season. The British rider was just a further one-thousandth of a second back from Oliveira in third as he set his fastest time on his last lap.
Mapfre Team Mahindra’s Jorge Martin (+0.657s) put in his best qualifying performance of the season to start from the front of the second row in fourth. Jorge Navarro (+0.689s) on the Estrella Galicia 0,0 Honda was fifth fastest after recovering from the crash that ended his participation in the San Marino GP weekend.
Ongetta-Rivacold’s Niccolo Antonelli finished in sixth (+0.710s), ahead of Alexis Masbou (SAXOPRINT RTG) and the man who had earlier topped FP3, Efren Vazquez (Leopard Racing).
Phillip Oettl (Schedl GP Racing) and Romano Fenati (Sky Racing Team VR46) completed the top ten. Fenati won last year’s race at Aragon from 13th on the grid.
Scotsman John McPhee (SAXOPRINT RTG) will start from 14th on the grid. Sena Yamada is filling in for the injured Fabio Quartararo and qualified in 23rd. Quartararo, while not riding, took the chance to announce that he will make the switch to the Leopard Racing team in 2016.
Remy Gardner (31th – 1’59.940): “Today we took an important step forward with the settings and my lap times are better but at the end we can’t see this progression reflected on the timesheets. I’ feel that I’m ready for the race and the goal will we push as hard as I can from de beginning just to try to overtake the maximum amount of riders and try to progress quickly”.
Andrea Locatelli (Gresini Racing Team Moto3) took no part in Saturday’s action and will miss the rest of the weekend due to the pain from the sacrum fracture he suffered at Misano.
Moto3 Qualifying Results
