Marc Márquez dominates MotoGP practice and claims pole in Australia

The 2017 Australian Grand Prix has held its official practice session at Phillip Island Circuit, where we have seen the premier class riders give their all in good conditions to go flat out.

The first riders to leave the garage in MotoGP were those who failed to place in the top 10 of the combined times from FP1-FP2-FP3. On the first attempt, we saw Jorge Lorenzo going very fast, setting the first mark at the finish line to take the lead, followed by Abraham, but there was still plenty of time left in the practice session, so keep a close eye on the laps. With 9 minutes remaining, Rossi moved into 1st place followed by Rins, so tension was extreme.

The Q1 was intense right to the end, with many changes in the second position, with Rins-Rabat-Smith, until in the end, it was the Briton who, alongside the Italian, Valentino Rossi, set the best times and earned their passage to Q2. Meanwhile, the rest of the grid positions for places 12-23 were completed by Rins 13th, Rabat 14th, Abraham 15th, Lorenzo 16th, Baz 17th, Petrucci 18th, Barberá 19th, Redding 20th, Parkes 21st, Lowes 22nd and 23rd Bautista.

Then came the moment of truth, the battle for the top 12 spots on the grid for this session, as Andrea Iannone became the first rider to set interesting times, although right behind Márquez, but there was still time left in Q2, so there was still action ahead in the premier class on a circuit where we have seen all the riders putting up a fight.

At an important point in the session, we saw Marc, who was in the pits, get onto his Honda, and at that moment Iannone went out on his machine, but suddenly we saw the 93 return to the pits, so the rider of Honda feinted perfectly to the Italian so that he could get his wheel, without a doubt an interesting moment in Q2. We also saw Crutchlow crash at that moment.

With 1 minute left in the session, we saw Zarco take first place in the classification, but the Frenchman saw Maverick Viñales snatch the position from him just after, but Márquez came from behind in red, setting a time of 1:28.386, followed by Viñales, who finished 0.333s behind. The top 12 was completed by Zarco 3rd, Iannone 4th, Miller 5th, Pol Espargaró 6th, Rossi 7th, Aleix Espargaró 8th, Smith 9th, Cal Crutchlow 10th, Dovi 11th and 12th Pedrosa.

In the Moto3 category, pole went to Jorge Martín, followed by Rodrigo and Joan Mir. The 36 is fighting for the title in Sunday’s race, so there is plenty of tension. The rest of the grid positions were completed by Guevara 4th, Fenati 5th, Danilo 6th, Pagliani 7th, Canet 8th, Bastianini 9th and 10th Suzuki. The rest of our riders are Ramírez 16th, Herrera 27th.

On to the races.

Photo | MotoGP Official website