Repsol Honda team riders are only competitors to breach the 2 minute mark in qualifying, as Marquez takes record 13th pole in a single season.
Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa set a high bar in the qualifying session for the Malaysian Grand Prix, in which they finished first and second, respectively. They were the only riders to go round the Sepang circuit in under 2 minutes, faster than the record set last year by Marquez himself. The MotoGP World Champion claimed an historic thirteenth pole in a single season today, establishing a new record.
In the third practice session of the weekend, Dani Pedrosa was again the fastest with Marquez third. Both were almost a second faster than they were yesterday. Marquez made a notable improvement to his pace in the final practice, scoring the fastest time and going 0.073s quicker than his teammate. The positions were repeated in qualifying, in which the Repsol Honda riders were a step ahead of everyone else. Despite the intense heat that reached 56ºC on track, the duo still managed to ride quicker than last year’s pole record. Marquez claimed pole with a 1:59.791 lap, with Pedrosa 0.182s behind.
The Malaysian GP will take place tomorrow at 4:00pm local time.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
1st- 1:59.791, 32 laps, 177 km
“I am very happy to have taken pole position, because the temperature out on track was very high and it was difficult to do such a good lap! The time was very good –better than I had expected– so I am delighted with how things went today. Let’s hope that tomorrow’s race is dry, but Dani looks to be a very strong candidate for the win; he has a great pace and we hope to be ready to fight with him from the opening lap! I’m also happy to have broken the record. Maybe pole positions are somewhat insignificant because they don’t give you any points, but you achieve them by being the fastest rider over a single lap. That doesn’t mean that you will be the fastest in the race, of course, so the most important thing is what happens tomorrow.”
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
2nd – 1:59.973, 35 laps, 194 km
“It was a good qualifying session. The times that were being put in were amazing, because in this heat the bikes don’t normally go that fast and the tyres don’t tend to have so much grip. We will try to have a good race, because the last two have not been great for us. We have a strong desire to take a good result, and we also need one if we want to finish runners-up in the Championship, but the first thing that we have to do is push 100% tomorrow regardless whether it rains or shines!”
