Marc Marquez secures front row start in Jerez

The second day of action at the Jerez circuit decided the grid for the fourth race of the year, with Marc Marquez claiming a place on the front row. The reigning MotoGP World Champion was second in a session topped by Jorge Lorenzo.

In the third and fourth free practice session, Marquez finished seventh and fourth, respectively. He was only 3 tenths off the fastest time in both sessions. A crash in FP4 at the end of the straight meant that he would subsequently take things calmly in qualifying.

He chose to run only two stints, instead of the three that gave him pole a year ago, and although he was quickest in the first three sectors of the Jerez track, he was not quite able to best poleman Lorenzo. Marquez eventually secured second place with a time of 1:38.300.

Marc Marquez
“We knew it would be hard work to get onto the front row. That was the goal and we succeeded, so I am very happy about that, but we also know that tomorrow will be a difficult race and it will be hard to finish the 27 laps. On the other hand, today I was able to ride without painkillers and tomorrow I will be using them. We had prepared three sets of tyres to use in the qualifying session, however, after the crash, I preferred not to push things and we used just the two –but we could not make it onto pole.”

Source: Repsol Media