Jerez MotoGP: Top 5 quotes after qualifying
Pedrosa storms to Spanish Pole with Marquez second in all-Honda front row
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
| Cla | # | Driver | Bike | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | km/h | Speed Trap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 26 |  Dani Pedrosa |
Honda | 7 | 1'38.249 | 162.065 | 290 | ||
| “This was probably one of the best poles of my career because it was a really hard battle. It was a strategic end of the session with Marc there right behind me, so for a moment I wasn’t sure if I should push or not. There was no choice anyway, so I just went for it. I’m very happy because our main target for the GP was to be on the front row. The feeling was really good, and it has been good all weekend, so I told myself, Okay, let’s try it. It has been a while since I’ve led in qualifying; I’ve struggled a lot last season so I’m very happy with today. Thanks to the team for the hard work, and I’m also happy for Honda. It looks like we’re doing really well so let’s focus for tomorrow and do the best we can!” | |||||||||
| 2 | 93 | Marc Marquez |
Honda | 8 | 1'38.298 | 0.049 | 0.049 | 161.984 | 290 |
| “Dani has been really strong and fast today, and all weekend honestly. For that reason, I tried to follow him during the final laps in qualifying, to learn what he was doing differently! I was able to do a very good lap time and that was my target, to get a front-row start because I’ve been struggling a bit here with the fast lap. I’m happy because it looks like we’re getting better and better. Today in FP4 we were able to set a very good pace and we’re very satisfied with that. Normally this circuit is not one of the best for our bike and for my riding style, but it looks like our plans are working well. We’re improving in the areas we’re working on, and that’s also important in view of the coming races at the other European tracks. Anyway, now we must think about tomorrow; race day is always different but we’ll try to manage well.” | |||||||||
| 3 | 35 |  Cal Crutchlow |
Honda | 7 | 1'38.453 | 0.204 | 0.155 | 161.729 | 290 |
| “I felt really good, it’s nice to have Honda in 1-2-3 today. It’s a shame about Marc (Marquez) but I’m sure he’s got the pace to be in there, if not faster, as well. We had a positive session, I was trying a lot of things for Honda today so I wasn’t really looking at the lap time or result too much and I got held up when I did start to push a bit. But we’re positive, I didn’t try too many settings as we were testing other stuff, so I’m confident we can go faster. Honda and my team are working very hard and we’re looking forward to trying more things tomorrow.” | |||||||||
| 4 | 25 | Maverick Viñales |
Yamaha | 7 | 1'38.677 | 0.428 | 0.224 | 161.362 | 291 |
| “I think today was good. We worked quite hard and tried to find a good set-up. Honestly, the right side of the tyre is really good, but when I go onto the left side I suddenly have a lot of wheelspin. We have to check it out this night and work really hard for tomorrow‘s warm-up. We still have to decide on the tyre options. We did many laps on the medium tyre and the lap times weren‘t so bad, so we have to continue like that. Like we did today, we have to work a little bit more than we usually do during the warm-up, so I think tomorrow it‘s important to find a good set-up, especially for the left side.” | |||||||||
| 5 | 29 |  Andrea Iannone |
Suzuki | 8 | 1'38.744 | 0.495 | 0.067 | 161.253 | 290 |
| “I think we did a great in qualifying today. I’m very happy because yesterday we had a very difficult start and we managed to recover. The bike had a bad feel to it yesterday, but we did a great job and worked it out in the right way so we could have a better performance today. This is among the main strengths of Suzuki. Our group reacts very well. They never give up, and we always improve a lot. It is important for us to start from the second row. In previous races I always had a good pace in the race, but had to pay for the bad starting position, so the second row is a good chance to have a positive race. The top three riders are really strong, but we will try our best.” | |||||||||
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