Marc Marquez just misses out on Qatar GP pole position

First qualifying session of the season sees Marc Marquez place second, just 0.091s off pole. Dani Pedrosa claims seventh, leading the third row.

The starting grid for the Qatar Grand Prix –the first round of the 2016 MotoGP season– was decided on Saturday, with Marc Marquez taking second position. The Repsol Honda Team rider was just behind Jorge Lorenzo in a tight qualifying session, which included a scare on a practice start from which he escaped unscathed. Marquez once again showed the improvement made on Friday and in recent winter tests at the Losail International Circuit, and could even have taken pole had he not left his final hot lap just too late to count. Dani Pedrosa, who did not have the same feeling with his bike as he did yesterday, finished the session in seventh place and will head the third row.

 

Marc Marquez  2nd  1:54.634  20 laps  108 km

 "I am happy. At first I thought I had taken pole, but when I got back the team told me that the chequered flag had already been shown before I began my lap. On the display I saw 1:54.2 and thought it was the pole time, but it didn’t count. We are satisfied with the feeling we have with the bike and how everything in general is going. At the end of Q2 we had a scare when making a practice start. Something happened and now we have to see what it was. We'll see tomorrow if we can keep this pace up, which I think will be good for the race."

 

Dani Pedrosa  7th  1:55.078  20 laps  108 km

 "Today was not the best day for us. I've been trying to decide which tyres we will use tomorrow and I didn’t find a good pace in PF4. Later, in Q2, I started well but had a problem with the second tyre and could not improve my times. Unfortunately I dropped down a few places and I am not as high up the grid as I would like, but tomorrow we will be fully focused on having a good race."