Michael Scott | August 26, 2017
Marc Marquez scored the pole at Silverstone aboard his factory Repsol Honda. (Gold & Goose photo)
Skipping over the bumps and sliding over the kerbs, Marc Marquez smashed his own record to claim his fourth pole position in succession for tomorrow’s British GP.
The Repsol Honda rider became the first rider to lap 5.9-km Silverstone, longest track of the year, inside two minutes. And he did it two laps in a row, rebounding from two crashes yesterday in a humbling display of skill and brinkmanship.
“Yesterday when I took risks, I crashed – but today I felt better on the bike. It’s shaking – we changed the set-up for this race and it is less stable, but the lap time is coming.”
Marquez took over the championship lead before the summer break, and stretched his advantage over the two races since then.
Two more riders cut under Marquez’s 2015 circuit best lap, set on Bridgestone tyres, since then supplanted as control tyre suppliers by Michelin.
But neither Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha) nor home hero Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda) broke the magic two-minute mark.
Rossi in second sounded a note of caution: the Yamaha’s difficulties with tyre degradation later in the race had not been solved. “We spin a lot,” he said.
Crutchlow was disappointed to have missed the two-minute mark due to some errors on his fast lap, and had his own comment on a riding style not much different from that of Marquez. “Our bike has a lot of strong points, but stability is not one of them.”
The last-minute dashes knocked Maverick Vinales (Movistar Yamaha) to fourth to lead the second row from the factory Ducatis, Jorge Lorenzo narrowly heading three-race winner Andrea Dovizioso.
Lorenzo was running with the “box-kite” winged fairing, although without internal vanes; Dovizioso had reverted to the smooth non-aero bodywork.
Qualifying was in fine, sunny conditions after a wet start to the day denied any chance of reshuffling the order of free practice times, condemning those not in the top ten to a run in Q1.
Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) and Jonas Folger (Monster Yamaha) made it through from that session, with Pedrosa placed seventh to lead row three from second Monster rider Johann Zarco and Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro.
Folger was tenth, with session crasher Pol Espargaro (Red Bull KTM) and Scott Redding (Pramac Ducati) alongside.
A crash cost Danilo Petrucci (Pramac Ducati) his chances of making it out of Q1. He ended up 18th on the grid.
Alex Rins (Ecstar Suzuki) was 13th, ahead of Alvaro Bautista (Pull&Bear Ducati) and second Suzuki rider Andrea Iannone. Last year, Vinales won the race on the Suzuki.
Mattia Pasini made it three poles in a row in Moto2, with a remarkable feat – setting two consecutive laps with identical times, down to the thousandths. This was early in the session, and nobody would manage to beat them, not even himself.
But times were close again, with the top 12 within a second; and the Marc VDS team-mates making it three Kalexes on the front row alongside the Italtrans bike.
Alex Marquez, who had been fastest yesterday, was the better, by a couple of hundredths, with Franco Morbidelli alongside.
Two more Kalexes lead a Suter on row two, with Idemitsu’s Takaaki Nakagami fourth, narrowly ahead of Luca Marini (Forward Racing); then Dominique Aegerter (Kiefer Suter).
Title challenger Thomas Luthi (CarXpert Kalex) qualified ninth, behind Lorenzo Baldassarri (Forward Kalex) and Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM).
American Joe Roberts qualified 29th.
Romano Fenati (Rivacold Honda) took his first pole of the season, just a tenth faster than title leader Joan Mir (Leopard Honda), with Gabriel Rodrigo (RBA KTM) – on pole for the last two races – slotting in to third to prevent an all-Honda front row.
The trio displaced erstwhile leader John McPhee (BTT Honda) to fourth, heading the KTMs of Niccolo Antonelli and Andrea Migno. Frequent fast qualifier Jorge Martin (Del Conca Honda), still recovering from injury, was ninth, on row three behind KTM riders Bendsneyder and Bulega.
The top dozen riders were within a second of pole.
Footnote: Moto3 qualifying results were delayed by more than an hour while officials sifted through a record number of laps disallowed for “exceeding track limits” – no less than 139 laps were cancelled, with riders frequently running on straight across the famous to-and-fro sections after the first two corners, often in big groups.
