Qualification for the French GP brought some strong emotions for the Repsol riders, who at the moment of truth knew how to handle the situation better than anybody and so they ended the session occupying the first two positions on the grid for tomorrow’s race. Marc Márquez was the fastest today, 1.47:80 and he was closely followed by Scott Redding, just 93 thousandths behind the KTM rider.
The session did not start like yesterday’s when the track was totally wet but which gradually dried out. However, if the track was dry after 10 minutes today it rained some more and it was not right until the end that the riders could use slicks. With 10 minutes left Márquez went out onto the track for the last time, at the same time Redding went out just behind him with grooved tyres on his bike.
The two Repsol riders then began to lower their times and they did four laps with red helmets accompanying their partial times (the system to show the fastest sector times on the screens around the pits), showing how well they were progressing. With this result the two got their best ever result in practice and will be at the head of the starting grid tomorrow, Cameron Beaubier will be 11th and Rabat 13th. Marc Márquez also became the second youngest rider ever to be in pole position, a record held by the Italian Marco Melandri, who set it back in 1998 at the Sachsenring track in Germany. Melandri was 15 years and 346 days old whilst Márquez is 16 and 89 days old.
The American will start from the third row after a session in which he managed to get among the fastest ten, but at the same time he almost fell a couple of times owing to the challenging conditions on a track that was slowly drying out. Rabat, who was more comfortable when the track was wet, did not have enough confidence at the very end to improve his time on slick tyres owing to the puddles still present on the French track.
Marc Márquez, 1’47.080 secs, 35 laps, 146 km. >> Audio
“Things went very well today and getting the first pole in my career is an important result, one I will always remember. The track was not in perfect conditions because even though it was dry in practically all the zones, there will still some places that were wet and you had to take care there. On the final lap I took some risks and they came off. Tomorrow I will try to get off to a good start, but we will see whether it rains or it is dry. We have a good set up for the wet, but for the dry we still have to improve a little more. Let’s see how things go, we have finished adjusting things and I think we can put in a good race.”
Esteve Rabat, 1’50.598 secs, 34 laps, 142 km. >> Audio
“At the start the track was very wet and we used wet tyres, although it was forecast that it would eventually dry out. We spent our time doing lap after lap without taking any type of risk, waiting for the track to dry out. When I saw that the track was better I upped the pace and I got among the fastest ten, but at the end when it was dry enough to put slicks on, I think that I just needed a couple more laps more to get a final boost to my confidence and get a better position on the grid.”
Scott Redding, 1’47.173 secs, 32 laps, 134 km. >> Audio
“I am pleased becaue last year we were not too lucky here. But it seems that things did not go too badly. The weather was not so good and we were waiting for the track to dry out. At the beginning it was a bit of a disaster because we had to change the clutch very quickly but it all worked out well and we got a good result. This is my best ever classification in practice in the World Championship, so I am very happy with the result. What happens tomorrow is the big unknown, because we do not know what the weather will be like. If the race is in the dry, better; although if it rains things should not be too bad for us either, because today with the track half wet and half dry I rode comfortably. We’ll see what happens.”
Cameron Beaubier, 1’49.695 secs, 31 laps, 130 km. >> Audio
“I am very pleased with having finished 11th. I hope that I can get off to a good start and take advantage to get into the chasing group, or closer to the front than I have been before. The start of the session was difficult because the track was wet and we had to wait quite a bit to put slicks on, just for the last 10 minutes. Things did not go too badly on the wet tyres either, so whatever the weather is like tomorrow I am ready to put in a good race.”
