Marc Marquez sets a time just two tenths off pole position, but will lead the second row for the Italian Grand Prix. Teammate Dani Pedrosa will take off from seventh, at the head of the third row.
The starting grid for the sixth round of the MotoGP season was established this Saturday at Mugello, and the Italian GP will see a relative novelty on raceday: For the first time in 16 races, Marc Marquez will not begin the contest from the front row. The Repsol Honda Team rider set a best time of 1:46.759 in the qualifying session, placing fourth and 0.255s off pole position. That puts him on the second row, one ahead of teammate Dani Pedrosa. Although he momentarily placed fourth and improved his time on his penultimate lap, his 1:47.218 time puts him seventh for the Mugello showdown.
Marc Marquez
“I’m happy with how the day went. This morning I felt very comfortable, but in the second free-practice session of the day, the temperature rose and the setup we had didn’t work the same. It’s something that has already happened to us at other circuits this season, because our bike is quite sensitive to changes in temperature or the condition of the asphalt. We reacted in time and in the qualifying session we changed the setup, which worked out better. It’s a shame that on the last lap I made a mistake when I was improving my time, so tomorrow I’ll try to have a very good race in order to finish on the podium. It won’t be easy.”
Dani Pedrosa
“We were able to improve the result compared to Le Mans, which is important and was our goal for qualifying today. We need to carry this over into the race; tomorrow it will be important to start well and be strong in the early laps. We’ll try to move up some positions and maintain a good pace. I hope to make the most of the position we achieved today as I believe my race pace should be not too bad.”
