Repsol rider clocks best time in qualifying for 28th time in his career.
Last year’s Moto2 World Championship runner-up —and winner of four of the past five races in the intermediate class—, Marc Márquez took the best time in qualifying for the San Marino GP at Misano. It is the seventh time this season that the Spaniard has headed the grid this season, and he has no less than 28 poles to his name in his 5-year World Championship career.
After an unproductive first day of practice at Misano, the Moto2 riders were able to ride for two sessions in the dry on Saturday. In the first, Márquez completed 21 laps at a good pace, stopping the clock in 1’39.212. He was just 91 thousandths of a second down on top rider Simone Corsi.
In qualifying, the Repsol rider started well and pushed to take the initiative from the opening minute. Alongside usual suspects Espargaró, Redding, Iannone and Luthi, the Repsol rider was at his most dominant this afternoon. Despite a small scare when he nearly crashed, he rounded off the day with a best time of 1’38.242 that proved to be unbeatable for his rivals. He will be the poleman at Misano for the Sunday race.
Marc Márquez >> Audio
FP3 -1:39.212, 21 laps, 89 km.
QP – 1:38.242, 21 laps, 89 km.
“I am happy to have another pole for my collection, but what matters to me is Sunday, when the points are decided. It was a difficult session, because we all went out using a bit of guesswork with our settings. It was dry in the morning, but there were still some damp sections that didn’t have any grip, so it was difficult to set anything up based on that. The important thing is that we have improved every time that we have been out on track, trying things out and lowering our times. I had a bit of a scare on the final corner, which is what happens when you are still finding the best setup and push too hard. The important thing is that I know why it happened: I went over the inside line. Tomorrow in the warmup we will have to try out a couple of things to see if we can go better than today.”
