Career pole number 75 for Marc Marquez in Assen, tough qualifying for Dani Pedrosa

So close was today’s qualifying session in Assen that the riders on the front row ended up within just 0.059”, whilst the top-10 were split by less than 4 tenths of a second.

Well aware of how tight things were going to be today, and will be tomorrow, Marc Marquez worked hard with his crew to prepare for both the race and for the time-attack, which earned him his 75th career pole and 47th pole in MotoGP (his first in MotoGP at Assen).

The Championship leader topped all three sessions today, showing good race pace and blistering speed.

Opposite feelings in the other side of the garage, where Dani Pedrosa was unable to improve on his pace from yesterday and tomorrow will have to start from the sixth row of the grid.

Marc Marquez
POLE POSITION 1’32.791
“So far this weekend, things are going better than we were hoping for. The pole has not been one of my strongest points this year, and actually this will be the first time I’ll start form the top spot, because in Austin I earned the pole but was moved back to fourth. I was very happy with the rhythm I could keep in FP3 and FP4 and now I’m even more happy for the Q2 result. We’re trying and working in a good way. At this track stability is one of the main targets to achieve and step by step we improved that a bit. Our first goal is a podium finish but honestly we now have the possibility to fight for the victory. We must remain focused and work well in tomorrow’s warm-up to try and make another little step to improve the stability and to make the final choice for the tyres.”

Dani Pedrosa
18TH 1’34.125
“Today was very difficult. I missed the passage to Q2 this morning and then in Q1 my pace wasn’t fast enough. In the afternoon I also struggled with the wind. My start position is clearly not good but we must try and stay positive for the race and tomorrow fight to recover. It will be important to make the right tyre choice and then get a good start.”