Marquez beats teammate for pole in Germany

Marquez wins pole as teammate Pedrosa crashes trying to catch him

Marc Marquez notched a new best pole lap in the MotoGP Q2 session at the eni Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland, with Dani Pedrosa and Stefan Bradl also on row one – Pedrosa setting a fast lap before a crash.

A 1'20.937 effort from Marquez gave him pole by just under 0.3s from Repsol Honda colleague Pedrosa who went down at turn 1 with three minutes remaining. The rapid lap time for Marquez broke Casey Stoner’s six year old best pole lap record of 1’21.067 from 2008.

The home fans were delighted with Bradl (LCR Honda MotoGP) registering a 1’21.340 lap, as the German qualified third having initially been on provisional pole five minutes into the session.

The second row, meanwhile features a strong Yamaha presence with Open-equipped Aleix Espargaro (NGM Forward Racing) placing his Forward-Yamaha machine ahead of the factory Movistar Yamaha MotoGP machines of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi on the grid.

Andrea Iannone (Pramac Racing) impressed again in seventh, ahead of Pol Espargaro (Monster Yamaha Tech3) and Bradley Smith (Monster Yamaha Tech3) on row three. Smith suffered a fourth crash of the weekend in Q2 but was not hurt.

Alvaro Bautista (GO&FUN Honda Gresini) was tenth, whilst Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) and Nicky Hayden (Drive M7 Aspar) complete the fourth row having come through from Q1.

Cal Crutchlow (Ducati Team) missed out on a Q2 ride having crashed at high speed at turn 11, taking a big tumble through the gravel at the end of Q1. Crutchlow was unhurt and quickly went back to his pit box for a debrief despite initially looking quite shaken by the accident.

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