Marc Marquez - Photo Credit: MotoGP.com
Marc Marquez claimed his third consecutive Moto2 pole position at Le Mans despite a crash midway through the session which threatened to end his hot qualifying streak. The Spaniard has now qualified in the top two for 12 of his last 13 races and is well placed to increase his championship lead tomorrow.
The CatalunyaCaixa Repsol rider set his pole position time on just his fifth lap of the afternoon, setting a 1:37.710 which at the time gave him a half second advantage over Pol Espargaro. Then came the slip-up as Marquez carried too much speed into Garage Vert and lost the front of his Suter, sending him careering into the gravel. Although he recovered back to the pits and eventually got back out on track, he couldn't better his provisional pole time.
The challenge was set for the rest of the field to see if they could beat a 1:37.710 but none of them could manage it. Thomas Luthi came the closest on his Interwetten Suter, first taking second from Espargaro with a 1:37.927 before going even quicker eight minutes from time, coming up short by three hundredths of a second.
Marquez will also have his championship rival alongside with Pol Espargaro taking third, another rider whose fastest lap came early on, while Scott Redding starts an excellent fourth for Marc VDS Racing. The session came to a rather anti-climactic conclusion as rain started to fall five minutes from the end but Andrea Iannone managed to improve his time regardless, enough to secure fifth ahead of the second Marc VDS Kalex of Mika Kallio. Alex de Angelis will start seventh ahead of home favourite Johann Zarco with Claudio Corti and Toni Elias completing the top ten.
Tech 3 had a miserable session with Bradley Smith and Xavier Simeon 19th and 21st respectively. The latter of the two may not even start the race tomorrow after being stretchered away following a crash at the Chemin Aux Boeufs chicane. If he does start, he'll line up three places ahead of Gino Rea who qualified 24th on the Gresini Suter.
