MUGELLO (Italy): Defending world champion Marc Marquez snatched pole position for Sunday’s Italian MotoGP with the Honda rider setting a new lap record in the closing seconds of qualifying.

The Spaniard clocked 1min 45.519sec to break a lap record that was only a few hours old and pip France’s Fabio Quartararo, riding a Yamaha, by 0.214sec on the Tuscany circuit.

Italy’s Danilo Petrucci, who had earlier achieved a new lap record, was third fastest on a Ducati at 0.362.

Five-time MotoGP champion Marquez will start on pole for the 56th time as he targets a fourth win this season in the sixth round of the world championship series.

“It was very hard to achieve,” said Marquez, who tailed Italy’s Andrea Dovizioso on the very quick Tuscan circuit where the Ducati rider had earlier set the fastest time ever in MotoGP of 356.7 km/h.

Marquez has won three of the last five races and has an eight-point lead on Dovizioso in the overall world championship standings, having lost points by a fall at the Grand Prix of the Americas.

The 20-year-old Quartararo continued to impress after becoming the youngest ever competitor to achieve pole position in Spain last month, in his debut MotoGP season.

“Marc benefited from a very good aerodynamic drag [behind Dovizioso], I was all alone,” said the French rider. “The bike is doing very well here,” added Quartararo as his team-mate Franco Morbidelli was fourth quickest.

Petrucci saved the honour of local stable Ducati as team-mate Dovizioso qualified in ninth.

Australian Jack Miller, riding forthe Ducati-supplied Pramac team, was fifth.

Italian legend Valentino Rossi will start 18th on a track where he has won seven times, just behind Spanish former three-time world champion Jorge Lorenzo, who also had a disappointing day in Tuscany.

KTM rider Johann Zarco crashed in the final lap of Q1 and will start in 19th position, once again trailing his new team-mate Pol Espargaro, who starts from 12th position in the fourth row.

In the morning, Petrucci rode a 1min 46.056sec lap, surpassing the previous record achieved by seven-time MotoGP champion Rossi last year.

Dovizioso established a new outright speed record in MotoGP, clocking 356.7km/h in the third practice, to overtake the mark of 356.5 km/h also achieved at Mugello last year.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2019