Marquez takes wet Sepang pole despite fall
UPDATE: Marquez loses pole position due to a grid penalty.
Marc Marquez has put himself on pole position for the Malaysian MotoGP despite crashing midway through the wet Q2 session, while Johann Zarco bolted into second place ahead of Valentino Rossi late on.
UPDATE: Marquez loses pole position due to a grid penalty.
Marc Marquez has put himself on pole position for the Malaysian MotoGP despite crashing midway through the wet Q2 session, while Johann Zarco bolted into second place ahead of Valentino Rossi late on.
The Repsol Honda rider looked comfortably quicker than his rivals getting up to speed in the wet following a heavy rain shower which suspended qualifying by 80 minutes at Sepang, with the 2018 MotoGP world champion notching in a 2m 12.161s to pull out over one second on the rest with his second flying lap.
Marquez saw his session stalled by a crash at Turn 4 on his third fast lap, sliding off in the wet conditions, but retained top spot for his seventh pole position of the season.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Zarco built up his speed up during the session to climb to second place with his final lap, ending it over half a second behind Marquez, but shuffling Movistar Yamaha’s Rossi into third position.
Suzuki’s Andrea Iannone appeared to profit from following Marquez on his best lap to take fourth place, despite coming close to colliding with the Repsol Honda rider, while Andrea Dovizioso saw his charge restrained to fifth place following a late crash at Turn 9.
Jack Miller completes the second row in front of Pramac Ducati team-mate Danilo Petrucci who is joined on row three by Friday’s fastest rider Alex rins and Q1 graduate Alvaro Bautista on the Angel Nieto Ducati.
Dani Pedrosa claimed 10th place on the factory Honda ahead of Maverick Vinales who struggled in the wet, 2.6s off pole-sitter Marquez even though he could match him in the dry on his Movistar Yamaha, with Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro completing the top 12 after he crashed early in Q2.
In a frantic Q1 session which saw Bautista and Espargaro progress, Scott Redding was the unlucky 13th-placed rider to miss out on making the pole position shootout session but ahead of Michele Pirro who came into qualifying with just a dry FP3 and mixed condition of FP4 to get to grips with the GP18 at Sepang.
Xavier Simeon also impressed with a late surge into 14th on the grid ahead of Red Bull KTM pair Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith, with the British rider suffering a mid-session crash before sprinting back to the garage for his spare bike only to miss the cut off by a few seconds.
Thomas Luthi was another to crash out in Q1 to restrain him to a lowly 18th , while Franco Morbidelli and Stefan Bradl struggled on their respective Hondas.
Karel Abraham, Takaaki Nakagami and Hafizh Syahrin rounded out qualifying with a particularly disappointing session for the local Malaysian rider in the wet conditions.
Jordi Torres has been ruled out of the remainder of the race weekend following a heavy FP4 crash in which he sustained a hand injury.
