Reigning MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez went under Casey Stoner’s long-standing outright lap record in qualifying at the Sachsenring this afternoon to take his seventh pole from eight races.
The Repsol Honda man was the only rider to go under the 1’21s mark with a 1’20.937 which bettered Stoner’s 2008 effort, using qualifying tyres, of 1'21.067. He was chased by team-mate Dani Pedrosa, who led until the last laps, but a crash at turn one ensured he wasn’t able to challenge Marquez for top spot.
Hometown hero Stefan Bradl gave ze Germans something to celebrate, putting the LCR Honda on the outside of the front row and was four-tenths slower than Marquez on the full factory effort and makes it a Honda clean sweep of the top positions.
Aleix Espargaro was the best of the Yamahas in fourth place, heading Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi. The Movistar Yamaha men weren’t able to challenge the Honda pace and Rossi spent some of the final timed session rolling around on the hard tyre while the rest lapped on the soft.
Andrea Iannone was the only Ducati to make it into qualifying two on merit and kept up his free practice pace to end in seventh, one place of Pol Espargaro on the satellite Monster Yamaha. Bradley Smith suffered his fourth crash of the weekend and was reduced to ninth place with Alvaro Bautista in tenth.
Qualifying one promotees Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden rounded out the top 12 while Scott Redding was unable to make either tyre option work in the first session and ended in 14th.
Cal Crutchlow again failed to make it out of qualifying one as a crash at the infamous turn 11 put paid to his challenge and the time he set before his off just wasn’t enough to get through to the main battle. He had set the fastest lap in the opening two sectors but asked too much of the front tyre and it let go. He was unhurt.
Michael Laverty found another tenth of a second to better his time from yesterday and will start tomorrow’s race from 18th. He has former two-time World Superbike Champion Colin Edwards behind him.
