Marc Marquez has taken pole position ahead of the 2019 Moto Grand Prix of America after a great lap early in the session.
After torrential rain soaked the track on Saturday morning, qualifying took place on a pretty much bone-dry circuit.
Jorge Lorenzo and Danilo Petrucci made it through to the second part of Qualifying after both had difficult Friday’s.
Meanwhile, Petrucci’s Ducati teammate Andrea Dovizioso failed to make it through and will start tomorrow’s race from the fifth row of the grid.
Marquez set the pace early in the second part of Qualifying setting a lap time of 2m.03.787 that would not be beaten by any of the opposition, despite his bike wobbling down the back straight due to the wind.
His Repsol Honda teammate Lorenzo suffered a chain break as he completed his first flying lap meaning he had to ditch his bike just by the pit-lane exit and run back to the pits to get on his second bike.
Lorenzo eventually qualified in 11th position, 1.5 seconds off Marquez’s pole time.
Valentino Rossi and Cal Crutchlow will share the front row with Marquez after a great lap from both riders.
After qualifying, Marquez commented: “Today it was so windy on the back straight and maybe with the setup we have with the bike didn’t help – we set it up yesterday (Friday) when there was no wind.
“Tomorrow the forecast shows no wind, so we’ll keep it the same, but today it was shaking too much – but for two laps it was okay. I’m happy because it’s another pole position after a strange day.”
Rossi said: “It was a difficult day because this morning we did not make FP3, but I feel comfortable with the bike.
“In the half and half conditions in FP4 we normally suffer a lot, but today the bike gave me better feedback so I can push in a better way.
“In qualifying we were strong to so I’m very happy to start from the front row as its very important for tomorrow. Now we wait, we wait for the conditions tomorrow so we can make the right tyre choice.”
Crutchlow said: I wasn’t overly pleased with my lap; I lost the front three times in one lap.
“We tried to change the setup from yesterday because we never had the morning session, so we needed to use the qualifying as a little bit of a test.
“Nobody’s near Marc as we know, you saw him in the damp session before he was two seconds clear, but we did a good job. The team’s working very very well, I’m happy with the team, happy with the bike so everything’s going well so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
| Pos | Rider | Team | Time | Gap |
| 1 | Marc Marquez | Honda | 2m03.787s | – |
| 2 | Valentino Rossi | Yamaha | 2m04.060s | 0.273s |
| 3 | Cal Crutchlow | LCR Honda | 2m04.147s | 0.360s |
| 4 | Jack Miller | Pramac Ducati | 2m04.416s | 0.629s |
| 5 | Pol Espargaro | KTM | 2m04.472s | 0.685s |
| 6 | Maverick Vinales | Yamaha | 2m04.489s | 0.702s |
| 7 | Alex Rins | Suzuki | 2m04.534s | 0.747s |
| 8 | Danilo Petrucci | Ducati | 2m04.696s | 0.909s |
| 9 | Fabio Quartararo | Petronas Yamaha | 2m04.941s | 1.154s |
| 10 | Franco Morbidelli | Petronas Yamaha | 2m05.278s | 1.491s |
| 11 | Jorge Lorenzo | Honda | 2m05.383s | 1.596s |
| 12 | Francesco Bagnaia | Pramac Ducati | 2m05.887s | 2.100s |
| 13 | Andrea Dovizioso | Ducati | 2m05.907s | – |
| 14 | Joan Mir | Suzuki | 2m06.147s | – |
| 15 | Takaaki Nakagami | LCR Honda | 2m06.324s | – |
| 16 | Aleix Espargaro | Aprilia | 2m06.464s | – |
| 17 | Andrea Iannone | Aprilia | 2m06.527s | – |
| 18 | Miguel Oliveira | Tech3 KTM | 2m06.543s | – |
| 19 | Johann Zarco | KTM | 2m06.824s | – |
| 20 | Karel Abraham | Avintia Ducati | 2m07.129s | – |
| 21 | Hafizh Syahrin | Tech3 KTM | 2m07.308s | – |
| 22 | Tito Rabat | Avintia Ducati | 2m07.417s |
Header image from MICHELIN Motorsport
By Jordan Hollands
jayracemedia.co.uk 