The reigning World Champion will begin the Qatar Grand Prix from third, whilst Jorge Lorenzo will debut with the Repsol Honda Team from the fifth row, in fifteenth position.
The second day in Qatar started with more windy conditions and lower temperatures, which led to numerous crashes -including two for Jorge Lorenzo and two for Marc Márquez.
At the start of FP3, Lorenzo was thrown from his bike exiting Turn 6 on his initial hot lap. One lap later, Márquez went wide out of Turn 14 and lost both front and rear grip on the rumble strip. In FP4, the reigning World Champion crashed again midway through the session, coming into Turn 6.
In Q1, Lorenzo was up into on his first hot lap attempt, but when using his second tyre he lost front grip going into Turn 2.
Marc Márquez steadily improved his times in Q2, clocking a final lap that placed him third on the grid.
MARC MÁRQUEZ | 3rd
“It’s one of the circuits where we usually struggle so I had to work on the strategy to get a front row. This was the target and I am happy to have achieved it. Especially today where it was incredibly cold and windy, if it’s like this tomorrow we need to survive. Yesterday I felt really strong with the bike but today it was tougher and it was so easy to crash and we had to limit the risks. Tomorrow we will see what happens, the temperature could change a lot.”
JORGE LORENZO | 15th
“I have some pain in my back and I need to rest and then see how I wake up tomorrow. It hasn’t been a great day today, very unlucky with the first crash. There were a combination of factors that made me have a very nasty crash which has created a lot of pain. Then in qualifying I crashed because it was too cold, it wasn’t a good day for us. It will be a race of survival, especially for me with my experience with the bike and also my pain.”
