Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez has taken his fifth MotoGP pole position in a row at Le Mans this afternoon by another massive margin, heading Pol Espargaro by just under seven-tenths of a second while Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo ended on the second row.
Marquez was once again in a class of his own, lapping in 1’32.042 on the soft tyre while his team-mate Dani Pedrosa could only muster ninth place and is a second slower but is, according to his team PR speak, resting the arm that was operated on last week to cure arm pump.
Stefan Bradl, who had the same operation at the same time as Pedrosa, was significantly faster than his HRC stablemate, taking fourth place, just behind Andrea Dovizioso who put the extra soft rear to good use to round out the front row.
Rossi and Lorenzo are some eight-tenths off the pace in fifth and sixth respectively with Alvaro Bautista in seventh and Aleix Espargaro in eighth. Bradley Smith was mixing it at the sharp end early on but slipped back to tenth place.
Andrea Iannone had his fastest lap disallowed for exceeding the track limits so was bumped from second place to 11th but still finished in front of Cal Crutchlow who came through from qualifying one to finish in 12th.
Colin Edwards survived two massive highside attempts in qualifying one when his rear-wheel speed sensor failed to finish in 15th, two places behind Nicky Hayden while Scott Redding was 16th after following the Texas Tornado for two laps.
Michael Laverty ended the day in 21st.
