The 2013 sub-champion sets pole position for the tenth time in his career, followed by Alex Marquez in second for the first race of the 2014 season.
From the first lap out of the box today, Rins and Marquez were on form. During every outing, the pair were at the top of the timesheet. By the end of qualifying, Rins took his tenth pole position of his career, with a time of 2 minutes, 5 seconds and 973 milliseconds –just 0.152 seconds ahead of his teammate.
Tomorrow the two will head the grid at the first race of the year, which will start at 17:00 CET.
Alex Rins >> Audio
2:05.973, 16 laps, 86 km
“This is the first pole of the year and it’s special because we are coming from a very difficult preseason. We’ve all worked hard, especially HRC, so I want to say thank you. It was quite windy on the straight today and I was alone. If I’d had someone in front of me for reference, it would have helped, but that didn’t happen so I am even happier for the result, having done it alone. Now I just have to wait for the race tomorrow, which I think will be difficult, because there will surely be a group of six or seven riders in the front and it will be hard to get away. I think the race is going to be decided in the last three laps.”
Alex Marquez >> Audio
2:06.125, 15 laps, 81 km
“I think we’ve made a good position . We solved some problems we had yesterday, but still have to improve some things during the warm up. I’m happy with how the bike feels and I see that the pace is good. This is important, because the race is where things spread out. We are happy because it’s the first race and we are starting from the front row, which in qualifying is never easy for me. Tomorrow we’ll try to give the maximum in order to fight for the podium.”
