MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez fired his Repsol Honda to a seventh consecutive pole position around the Circuit of the Americas from Valentino Rossi and Cal Crutchlow.
With the morning storms now a distant memory, the track, bathed in sunshine was dry enough for all riders to qualify on slick tyres and Marquez wasted little time in using the dry track to its maximum.
Marquez went straight out and posted his fastest time of the weekend right away, Marquez stayed out and went faster on his RC213V, stamping his dominance on a track he has made his own in the seven years MotoGP have visited.
The Spaniard’s lap time of a 2:03.787 was over a quarter of a second ahead of the ever-impressive Valentino Rossi. The Italian posted his own fastest time of the weekend in qualifying, but couldn’t quite get a close to Marquez as he will’ve wanted.
Crutchlow rounds out the front row on his Honda, less than a tenth of a second behind Rossi, in third position.
Jack Miller will head the second row in fourth place and the Australian will be joined by Red Bull KTM’s Pol Espargaro and Friday fast man Maverick Vinales who will start from fifth and sixth respectively.
Alex Rins couldn’t nail his qualifying lap despite some great sectors along the way, meaning the Suzuki man will start from seventh. Q1’s second fastest man Danilo Petrucci was eighth with top rookie Fabio Quartararo in ninth.
Quartararo’s Petronas Yamaha team-mate Franco Morbidelli is place further behind in tenth. Jorge Lorenzo topped Q1 but could only manage eleventh place on the grid, after a dramatic qualifying session for the Spaniard. The former World Champion’s chain came off, leaving Lorenzo to run up pit-lane as his team-mate did back in 2015. Unfortunately for Lorenzo he couldn’t stick it on pole. Bagnaia rounded out the fourth row.
Andrea Dovizioso was a shock exit in Q1 when the factory Ducati man suffered a tactical nightmare when he elected to only use one tyre in the qualifying session. With the chequered flag out, Dovizioso’s factory Ducati team-mate piped him into the top 12 shoot out.
