Marc Marquez produced another awe-inspiring display to snatch pole position from under the nose of Jorge Lorenzo at Brno. The championship leader set the fastest ever two-wheeled lap of the Czech circuit despite having to navigate his way through traffic in the final sector, pipping Lorenzo by a quarter of a second.
Having topped the timesheets by over seven tenths in Saturday morning practice, Lorenzo started qualifying as the overwhelming favourite for pole and his first lap seemed to back up that status, Jorge clocking a 1:54.959 to open up a comfortable advantage over his challengers. The biggest battle for the session seemed to be between the Yamaha rider and the stopwatch, especially when he improved to a 1:54.849 on his second run, but the brilliance of Marquez soon changed that.
With his last attempt of the afternoon, Marquez had locked himself into the slipstream of Valentino Rossi’s Yamaha while Pol Espargaro led the trio on the approach to turn thirteen. With another stunning display of bike-control, Marquez scythed underneath the no.46 before missing the rear wheel of Espargaro by inches, ducking out of the Tech 3 Yamaha’s two and stopping the clock at 1:54.596, the fastest ever lap of Brno.
Lorenzo had to settle for second while Andrea Iannone ensured three different manufacturers would make up the front row, qualifying third for Ducati. Aleix Espargaro secured fourth for Suzuki, his best grid slot of the year, while Hector Barbera used a tow from the polesitter to take fifth ahead of Rossi.
Andrea Dovizioso heads the third row ahead of Maverick Vinales and Dani Pedrosa while Cal Crutchlow shrugged off a crash in FP4 to round out the top ten, just ahead of Q1 qualifier Bradley Smith.
2016 HJC Helmets Grand Prix Ceske Republiky (Qualifying Classification)
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