Marquez Soars To Sixth Sachsenring Pole

Jul 11, 2015
3 min read

Marc Marquez has qualified on pole at the Sachsenring five times consecutively. And on five consecutive occasions he has converted them to the win. Today, having dominated free practice, Marc Marquez will start on pole in Germany for the sixth successive year after record lap of 1:20.336. Not one for omens, but you can't look beyond the Honda rider dominating proceedings tomorrow afternoon. Even more telling was his pace in FP4 – ten mid 1:21s, the only rider lapping at that pace. What will be the deciding factor will be tyre choice, in particular on the front. No one will be racing the hard tyre, and it seems unlikely that the soft will be in use. So that leaves the medium and asymmetric options. The last time Marquez raced an asymmetric front tyre he crashed (Philipp Island, 2014) and he opted to run the medium front for qualifying.

More troubling for Marquez is that Jorge Lorenzo did qualify on the asymmetric front and seems comfortable with it. The Yamaha rider starts from 3rd after a last-gasp lap of 1:20.921 cemented his sixth front row start of the 2015 season. Dani Pedrosa starts alongside in 2nd and will be headache for Lorenzo. The Repsol rider was the only one even slightly comparable to Marquez on race pace, and Pedrosa is something of a Sachsenring specialist, so he could be the dark horse.

Lorenzo would love the win, but that looks set to be a Honda affair. Instead he'll have his eyes looking behind for his team-mate. Valentino Rossi will start 6th and will be very aggressive at the start, because he needs to clear the Ducati's of Yonny Hernandez and Andrea Iannone. If he can do that, then FP4 suggests that the Italian will have the upper hand on race pace.

Aleix Espargaro qualified 7th with a lap of 1:21.239 to salvage something for Suzuki, but more should have been possible. Team-mate Maverick Vinales had to go through QP1 and did well to deny the Avintia Ducati of Hector Barbera and the Satellite Honda of Scott Redding a place in QP2. But the Spaniard was unable to better his time from QP1 and remained 12th.

Bradley Smith looked a good bet for a top two-row start after his pace in FP3, but his session was curtailed by an unusual incident. The Briton rounded the penultimate turn on his opening flying lap and had a big wobble which resulted in him head-butting his Tech 3 Yamaha YZR-M1. Damaging the front bubble he lost precious minutes, and this upset his rhythm. Despite this Smith qualified ahead of Satellite rival Cal Crutchlow in 10th and was only a few hundredths off of Pol Espargaro in 8th.

Hector Brabera will be bitterly disappointed to have missed out on a QP2 spot by just six-hundredths of a second, but he can be happy with top open qualifier. Countryman Alvaro Bautista can be satisfied with his performance also. The Aprilia rider took his RS-GP to 16th and only half-a-second off of QP2 pace, which is a positive sign that the team are going in the right direction.

Eugene Laverty will be able to hold German GP qualifying bragging rights in the Laverty household as he outpaced brother Michael. Both line up 23rd and 24th respectively, and could be in for a rather fun scrap tomorrow. Claudio Corti rounds out the field in 25th on the Forward Racing Yamaha.

Marc Marquez has one hand on the German GP trophy already, but front tyre choice will be a major factor in the outcome. And typically that plays into the hands of the Doctor.

2015 German Grand Prix: The Grid

1st Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team, 1:20.336

2nd Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda Team, 1:20.628

3rd Jorge Lorenzo, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP, 1:20.921

4th Andrea Iannone, Ducati Team, 1:21.029

5th Yonny Hernandez, Octo Pramac Racing Ducati, 1:21.115

6th Valentino Rossi, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP, 1:21.220

7th Aleix Espargaro, Team Suzuki Ecstar, 1:21.239

8th Pol Espargaro, Monster Yamaha Tech 3, 1:21.274

9th Bradley Smith, Monster Yamaha Tech 3, 1:21.329

10th Cal Crutchlow, CWM LCR Honda, 1:21.409

11th Andrea Dovizioso, Ducati Team, 1:21.503