MotoGP 2016: Marquez storms to pole Down Under

Marc Marquez of Repsol Honda takes pole in the rain-hit qualifying session at the Australian GP.

Marc Marquez may have already bagged the 2016 championship title at Motegi, but it seems he’s not going to ease down for the remainder of the season. At Philip Island in Australia – first of the last three races this season - Marquez demolished the competition to take his career’s 65th pole position. This also makes the Spaniard enter the history books again for maximum number of poles across all classes in MotoGP. Marquez will be joined by Cal Crutchlow of LCR Honda and Pol Espargaro of Tech 3 Racing on the front row for tomorrow’s race.

Track conditions at the Philip Island circuit were far from perfect. Prior to the qualifying, the practice sessions were adversely affected by the rain, meaning it was wet for most of the part. With a drying track in the final practice though, Marc Marquez was the first to commit to slicks. His strategy clearly paid off since the Repsol Honda rider put the fastest lap times one after the other. While most of the riders switched to slicks, nobody managed to threaten or come close to Marquez’s lap times – most of which were in the low 1’30s. Crutchlow was the only rider to make it the 1'30s with a 1’30.981 – around eight-tenths slower than Marquez’s pole time of 1’30.189.

Pol Espargaro managed to finish third, pushing his brother Aleix Espargaro and home hero Jack Miller to 4th and 5th spot, respectively. Danillo Petrucci of Octo Pramac Ducati completes the third row in 6th. Starting 7th on the grid will be injured Dani Pedrosa’s replacement, Nicky Hayden, on the Spaniard’s Repsol Honda RCV. Stefan Bradl, Andrea Dovizioso and Hector Barberra complete the top 10 in the same order.

Owning to tricky conditions, Valentino Rossi slipped out of the Q2 as he failed miserably to make it through Q1 for the final qualifying shootout. His teammate Jorge Lorenzo made it to the Q2, albeit he finished dead last in 12th behind Scott Redding.

After having ended up in gravel in the last race, both Rossi and Lorenzo will be hoping to finish tomorrow’s race further up the order since the constructor’s title is still up for grabs.