Marquez clinches breath-taking pole for Red Bull GP of Argentina

2015-04-18 12:29
Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez has clinched his 24th MotoGP pole position – and second successive – for tomorrow’s twenty-five lap race in Argentina, with teammate Hiroshi Aoyama qualifying 15th.

With track temperatures almost doubling since this morning’s FP3 session, replacement rider Hiroshi was unable to find a better feeling with the Honda RC213V and did not manage to reach Q2. His time of 1’39.715 placed him 15th for tomorrow’s race. Marc, who has been fastest all day, opted for a three-stop strategy in Q2, in order to take maximum advantage of each new tyre. He was able to improve on each exit and his pole time of 1’37.802 was over half a second faster than second place Aleix Espargaro, and only 0.119 off his 2014 pole record.

Tomorrow’s race will start at 16h00 local time.

Marc Marquez
1ST 1'37.802
“I am happy today, because we were able to fight for pole and eventually got it. It was a lot of fun, because we used a three-tyre strategy and it worked well. It was important to start from the front tomorrow, because the track is quite dirty and that makes it harder to overtake. We'll see what happens, we expect a pretty tough race with even higher temperatures than today. My strongest rivals - Jorge and Valentino - are starting from the second row, so I hope to have a good start and a strong race.”

Marc Marquez
Hiroshi Aoyama
15TH 1'39.715
“Yesterday I struggled to find a good feeling with the bike and also this morning, I still wasn’t comfortable. Then this afternoon we changed something with the setup and I found some confidence on the bike which allowed me to push. In qualifying we made another step with the setup and improved the lap time but of course it’s not the position we had hoped for. We still have some areas to improve and I hope we can find a step in time for the race.”

Hiroshi Aoyama
Results Session

Pos. Rider Num Nation Team Time/Gap
1
MARQUEZ
Marc 93 SPA Repsol Honda Team 1'37.802
2
ESPARGARO
Aleix 41 SPA Team Suzuki Ecstar 1'38.316
3
IANNONE
Andrea 29 ITA Ducati Team 1'38.467
4
CRUTCHLOW
Cal 35 GBR CWM LCR Honda 1'38.485
5
LORENZO
Jorge 99 SPA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1'38.485
6
DOVIZIOSO
Andrea 4 ITA Ducati Team 1'38.520
7
PETRUCCI
Danilo 9 ITA Pramac Racing 1'38.786
8
ROSSI
Valentino 46 ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1'38.890
9
VINALES
Maverick 25 SPA Team Suzuki Ecstar 1'39.187
10
SMITH
Bradley 38 GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1'39.197
11
REDDING
Scott 45 GBR Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS 1'39.380
12

Source: HRC

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