Marquez on Le Mans pole, Pedrosa hoping for good start from 6th

In today’s qualifying for the GP of France, Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez took his second ever MotoGP career pole position, at the very circuit he achieved his first ever pole in GP racing in the 125cc class in 2009. His teammate, Dani Pedrosa, could only manage 6th after a crash in turn two early in the session restricted his number of flying laps.

In this afternoon’s FP4 session, Marc also had a small crash in turn two which affected his confidence slightly. However, in Q2 he returned to the set up he had in the morning FP3 session and was able to set a fastest time of 1’33.187.

Dani, who was only able to complete one flying lap in his first run of Q2 had a crash on lap 4 but fortunately returned to the pits in time to get out on his second bike. He managed two flying laps and on his final lap he was able to achieve a second row grid spot with a lap time of 1’33.639.

Marc Marquez – 1st – 1’33.187
“Qualifying went very well. After FP3, in which we had a small front end crash and I lost my confidence a little, I was back on it immediately. It was hard to heat up the tyres, but that was the same for everyone. I think that’s the reason why there were so many crashes. I am very happy, because I think that we had a good session and have a good pace. Tomorrow we will try to give 100% and see if we are fortunate enough to have a dry race. If it is a wet one, then we just have to do as well as we can”

Dani Pedrosa – 6th – 1’33.639
“The afternoon practice sessions were difficult. I crashed in qualifying then had to go back to the garage and only had a little time left on the clock when I got back out on track. I wasn’t able to make the best use of the session, but at least I was able to clock a fairly decent time and place sixth. It is a pity, because we could have been much higher up the grid. For tomorrow we will have to try to get a good start, come back up through the field and have a good race”

Source: Repsol Honda Team