The Japanese Grand Prix is witnessing the best Marc Márquez on the track who, as he has been doing throughout the season, has shown an exceptional level on the track. The Repsol rider commanded the free practice session held this morning and was the fastest in the qualifying session once again, claiming his ninth pole position of the season, of the thirteen held.
Against yesterday’s forecasts, the sun and good temperatures prevailed at the Motegi circuit today, conditions that Marc Márquez and his team took full advantage of to fine tune the setup of his Derbi RSA, improving its performance, especially under braking. Márquez registered the best time in the free practice session, in which after 15 laps he had shaved more than one and a half seconds off his best time yesterday.
In the qualifying session, the Repsol rider continued to perform a step ahead of his rivals, constantly riding at a pace of 1 minute, 58 and a half seconds. In his last outing, Márquez shaved another half a second off his best time and until the last minute he had an advantage of almost one second over his pursuers, eventually ending with a 417 millisecond advantage over Nico Terol.
With this result, Márquez will start from first place on the grid tomorrow for the eleventh time in his sporting career, being the third Spanish rider with the most pole positions in the 125cc category, behind Angel Nieto (21) and Jorge Martínez ‘Aspar’ (19), and after passing Repsol rider Dani Pedrosa (9) in the Aragon race.
Marc Márquez, 1’58.030 sec, 31 laps, 149 KM >> Audio
“We are confident about tomorrow’s race and perhaps the only question is what the weather will be like because some say it will rain and others think that it will be dry. In any case, our main aim will be to finish the Grand Prix and score points towards the championship. Now, we have to start taking a few risks to try to win. We’ve got a good setup and total confidence in the bike if it is a dry race. I would like to send my best to Dani [Pedrosa], I hope that he recovers and is back on the top step of the podium soon because an injury at this stage of the year, with three races in a row and at your peak is very tough. I hope that I will be able to dedicate a victory to him tomorrow because he’s always been my idol. When I saw his fall yesterday, I thought that it wasn’t very normal for him to be overtaken in the first few minutes of the practice session; I quickly realised that he must have some kind of problem”.
