Motegi (Japan) (AFP)
Marc Marquez, already crowned World Champion MotoGP 2019, will start in pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, ahead of Italy's Franco Morbidelli and France's Fabio Quartararo.
The Spaniard advanced on his Honda the two drivers of the team Yamaha-SRT customer who will share with him the first line for the start of the Grand Prix at 15:00 local (08:00 French time).
With a time of 1: 45.763, he was 132 / 1000th ahead of Morbidelli and 181 / 1000th Quartararo, who had nevertheless been fastest in free practice on the Motegi circuit, whose track had dried up for qualifications after strong rains.
Motegi was the only circuit of the MotoGP championship on which Marquez, six-time world champion in the category at age 26, had never achieved a pole position so far.
"Finally, I did it so I'm happy," he said. "It was not completely dry but we could fly normally," he added, pointing out that his goal is to finish on the podium on Sunday.
He has already won 9 races out of 15 this season while there are still four races to go.
Neither Morbidelli nor Quartararo have yet won races in MotoGP. The young Frenchman, who at the age of 20 is making his first season in the premier category, has already won four pole positions by climbing the podium five times. He is seventh in the provisional classification of the world championship.
"The conditions were difficult," he said Saturday after qualifying. "The goal today was to be on the front line and we knew it would not be easy because I'm struggling with these kinds of conditions," he said.
"I'm optimistic for tomorrow because we have a very good dry speed", while the weather forecast for Sunday looks favorable, he added.
© 2019 AFP