Silverstone MotoGP: Marquez beats Lorenzo to pole, Rossi fourth

Marquez qualified ahead of championship leader Jorge Lorenzo of Yamaha, and his Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa.

Yamaha legend Valentino Rossi, who is level on points with Lorenzo at the head of the standings but behind him on race wins, will start fourth.

Story of the session

Marquez, who was already dramatically fast using the hard rear tyre in the morning’s FP4 session, slammed in 2m00.564s – the fastest-ever lap of Silverstone, breaking his own record (which was a 2m00.691s).

Lorenzo was an early second on 2m00.789s, but Pedrosa – who was up on Marquez’s first two splits, but tripped over Bradley Smith at The Loop – demoted Lorenzo with 2m00.716s that was good for P2.

On his second run, Marquez went even quicker and lowered his time to 2m00.234s, although he came perilously close to losing his laptime – and just stayed the right side of the astroturf at Woodcote after a huge slide.

Lorenzo improved to 2m00.522s to grab second back from Pedrosa, who failed to improve on his second run and sounded quite downbeat after the session.

Rossi, who had been focusing on improving rear-tyre degradation and engine braking through free practice, set an opening gambit of 2m01.779s for P5. He slipped back to sixth before setting a second flyer, a 2m01.182s.

On his second tyre, Rossi leapt up to fourth on his final lap with 2m00.947s to start from the inside of the second row, ahead of Pol Espargaro’s Tech 3 Yamaha. Britons Bradley Smith, Scott Redding (who followed Marquez on his pole lap) and Cal Crutchlow filled positions six to eight.

Andrea Iannone was only ninth on the lead Ducati, ahead of Aleix Espargaro.

Late thrills in Q1

The works Suzukis both looked set to progress from Q1, Aleix Espargaro just sixth thousandths quicker than Maverick Vinales. but Yonny Hernandez (Pramac Ducati) pulled out an absolute last-gasp flyer to top the session by a tenth and demote Vinales, who was sat in the pits and watching in despair.