Repsol Honda Team rider takes second consecutive pole position, again beating the lap record. Marc Marquez sixth in qualifying and will start from second row.
Dani Pedrosa again showed his quality in qualifying for the Catalan Grand Prix, setting the fastest lap ever recorded by a rider at the track. He broke a record held by Casey Stoner since 2008, en route to pole position for his home round. The new marker time for the track is now 1’40.893, which gave Pedrosa his second consecutive start from the front of the grid. Repsol Honda teammate Marc Marquez will take off from the second row, in sixth place. He also set a new record on Saturday, with the fastest ever top speed of 342.4km/h at the Circuit de Catalunya. That bested a feat held by Alex Barros since 2004.
Pedrosa’s speedy form was evident this morning in the third free practice session, in which he was third in a run dominated by Marquez. The latter had set a great time that his rivals were unable to match. However, in the fourth session and in qualifying, nobody could hang with Pedrosa; his times were the best in each of the sessions. The increase in temperature meant that Marquez experienced more problems than expected in his quest to get the best from his bike, and in the end he would qualify sixth –on row 2.
The MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix takes place tomorrow at 2pm local time.
Dani Pedrosa
FP3: 1:41.987, 19 lapss, 90 km.
Q2: 1:40.893, 8 laps, 38 km.
“I am very happy, because we put in a great lap and took a great qualifying time. It was a fantastic pole position for me. We also broke the circuit record and were able to do so in front of the home fans. I am also happy about improving our race pace, as this is the most important thing. We hope to put on a good show tomorrow and take full advantage of the front row start.”
Marc Marquez
FP3: 1:41.853, 19 laps, 90 km.
Q2: 1:41.842, 8 laps, 38 km.
“I am fairly happy and satisfied, because we achieved our objective of getting onto either the first or second row. In the morning I felt more comfortable, with the track temperatures lower than in the afternoon. When they rose sharply, we had more problems. Despite this, I think that we have done a good job. We will try to test out a few things in the warmup tomorrow and see if we can gain a little more confidence when the track is hotter.”
