The first qualifying session of the season has demonstrated that Marc Márquez is in excellent form, who in the first Grand Prix in the saddle of his Derbi RSA claimed the third pole position of his career. The Repsol rider battled for a place in the front row from the start, being the only rider on the grid capable of riding at under two minutes and seven seconds, stopping the clock at 2’06.651 seconds.
Fifth in the free practice held at six in the evening, Márquez and his team worked hard after the practice, fine-tuning the setup of his factory machine before the start of the qualifying session.
Through this improvement, the Repsol rider managed to shave almost a second and a half off his best time in the qualifying. The dirt on the track and some problems with the suspension in the fast turns prevented him from riding comfortably at the beginning of the session but as the work with his team advanced, the Repsol rider started to lower his lap times to clock up this best time. This pole makes three for Márquez in his career, after the two he achieved in 2009 in the French Grand Prix and the Malaysian Grand Prix.
Marc Márquez, 2’06.651 sec, 28 laps, 151 KM
“We had a good qualifying session and from the start I was more comfortable than in today and yesterday’s free practices. We were finding it a little difficult to get the right setup, so I would like to thank the whole team because in the end we managed to get a fairly good base. It’s not perfect, but it’s adequate but still, we’ll have to be very focused because the race is the most important part of the weekend, it’s when points are scored. I’m sure that we can improve the set up a bit more in the warm-up and we are also motivated after taking pole position, so we’ll have to keep concentrated to finish this race well”.
