Repsol Honda's Marc Marquez crushed not only his own outright lap record but probably the spirit of title rival Jorge Lorenzo on his way to a ninth MotoGP pole position today at Valencia.
Marquez set the fastest ever time around the Spanish circuit this morning with a 1'30.803 but utterly marmalised it this afternoon with a 1'30.233 which put Lorenzo's best of 1'30.577 in the shade.
As usual, Lorenzo was the first man out of pitlane and slaughtered the opposition with a 1'30.645, at that point a circuit record, with his first flying lap before coming in to wait for a space on track.
He went out after a five-minute gap but came straight back in with an engine problem and, with a shake of his head, got on to his second bike. Marquez, meanwhile, had taken half a second out of Lorenzo by the mid-point of his fastest lap but then two errors, including losing the front into the last corner, meant his gap remained.
Lorenzo, then, got his hammer down and narrowed the gap to three-tenths while Marquez very nearly bit the dust halfway around his final flyer and decided discretion was the better part of valour.
Outside of the top two, Britain's Bradley Smith smashed his way on to the front row with a 1'31.201 and it took the experience and works machinery of first Valentino Rossi and then Dani Pedrosa to push him off before he was finally demoted to sixth by Monster Yamaha team-mate Cal Crutchlow.
Alvaro Bautista kept hold of seventh place despite a crash, while Stefan Bradl, Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden rounded out the top ten.
Danilo Petrucci was the quickest of the Open class riders after getting in to qualifying two with Aleix Espargaro and Claudio Corti third. Michael Laverty ended in 21st.
