Britain's Cal Crutchlow has stormed to his debut MotoGP pole position at Assen this afternoon and denying Spanish wunderkind Marc Marquez by a little over three-tenths of a second with his last flying lap.
The Monster Yamaha man was just behind Marquez on track as they started their final circuit. The Repsol Honda man crossed the line with a 1'34.755 to break Stefan Bradl's heart and steal top spot from the German but Crutchlow wasn't to be denied and becomes the first Brit to start from pole since Jeremy McWilliams in 2002.
In typical style, Crutchlow played down the feat, saying it wasn't a true pole as Jorge Lorenzo wasn't in the session: "Jorge wasn't here and I would have liked to have had a dog-fight with him and maybe challenge for a race win later in the year."
Crutchlow went 0.357s faster than Marquez and, in the process, knocked Valentino Rossi down to fourth for what would have been his first front-row start of the season. The Doctor appears to have finally fixed his front-end problem with a lap of 1'34.974.
Dani Pedrosa, who crashed while sitting in pole and on another fastest lap, will start tomorrow's race from fifth place and is joined on the second row by Bradley Smith on the second Monster Yamaha who set his time while dicing with Marquez, who broke a finger and a toe in a crash this morning.
Aleix Espargaro took sixth place ahead of the satellite Honda of Alvaro Bautista with Randy De Puniet and Nicky Hayden in tenth. Michele Pirro is in 11th and there is a space for Jorge Lorenzo in 12th.
The reigning world champion his travelling back from his operation in Barcelona and is due return to the track in the middle of this afternoon. Speculation is raging as to whether he will race tomorrow but he will have to pass a medical and ride in morning warm-up.