Vinales takes pole; Marquez crashes out

Marc Marquez will start from the front row in tomorrow’s Gran Premio di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini, knowing that he has a good pace to fight at the front.

Marc had been the quickest rider in the FP3 session, and the second fastest in FP4. During qualifying, he recorded his fastest time on his first flying lap but a crash during his second exit prevented him from improving upon it. He finished in third, just 0.197” off pole position.

Viñales was the last rider to leave pit lane at the start of the 15-minute shoot-out, knowing that the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli is relatively short and that he would have enough time to set a fast lap. However, once on his way, he didn‘t waste a minute to make his mark. He immediately put his YZR-M1 on top with a 1‘33.408s lap.

The Spaniard was temporarily pushed back to second place shortly after completing his first flying lap, but the 22-year-old was not having it. He improved to a 1‘32.833s to reclaim provisional pole. Nevertheless, the battle for pole was far from over.

Once again the young gun dropped to second position, with less than eight and a half minutes to go. This time, Viñales couldn’t retaliate straight away, though he improved his best lap to a 1‘32.652s, and returned to the box with six minutes remaining.

One and a half minutes later, he was back out on track, eager to close the 0.016s margin to the man in first. He was unsuccessful on the first flying lap of his second run, but the number 25 rider had time for two more tries. Now in third place, he made the next attempt count, setting a personal best first sector and all red sectors in the last three parts of the track to post a magnificent 1’32.439s for pole. He held the top spot until the flag came out, with a gap of 0.162s to his closest rival, and will start tomorrow’s race from the front of the grid.