Repsol Honda's Marc Marquez has denied Cal Crutchlow his second MotoGP pole position in a row this afternoon at the Sachsenring with a storming final lap to beat the British rider by just over a tenth of a second.
Marquez put in a 1'21.311, the quickest lap of the weekend, to go top with two minutes left which bettered Crutchlow's 1'21.640 but neither the Monster Yamaha man or Valentino Rossi were out of it.
Rossi's final lap saw him bounce up to second place on a 1'21.493 before Crutchlow went just six one-hundredths better and crossed the line to bag second. The pair were both complaining about being held up on their final laps by an un-named rider. It is Rossi's first front-row start since before all this was fields.
Stefan Bradl suffered a front-end crash at the Omegakurve early in the session but recovered to set a 1'21.862 and sit at the head of the second row. He has CRT man Aleix Espargaro next to him and Nicky Hayden is by far the quickest of the Ducatis in sixth place.
Bradley Smith put his Monster Yamaha at the top of row three with his 1'22.297 with Alvaro Bautista and Claudio Corti next to him. Danilo Petrucci is 11th and Dani Pedrosa has a grid slot of 12th should he race.
PBM Aprilia's Michael Laverty claimed sixth fastest time in qualifying two with a 1'23.549 while the luckless Andrea Iannone suffered a dislocated shoulder when he crashed at turn one.
