Jorge Lorenzo wins over Andrea Dovizioso and Marc Marquez in Qualifying. The other two riders got the 2nd and 3rd place respectively but with very little gap.
Qualifying doesn’t always give us a great show (have a look at the “contrail-game”) but Marquez and the two Ducati managed to take the leading roles again until the chequered flag: Jorge Lorenzo won the pole position at Aragón, leaving his teammate Andrea Dovizioso and the current World Champion Marc Marquez (with just one bike available after he destroyed the other during FP4) behind, but with extremely short leads. The winning trio all finished Qualifying in the space of just 79 thousandths. A very important result for Ducati, as this is the first time in many years that they get three poles in a row. This will definitely be an unmissable race, and it will start at 2 PM on Sunday, September 23rd
The second round of Qualifying started with Marquez taking the lead and registering the best lap time of the weekend, but he had to fight hard against Lorenzo, Crutchlow (the only rider on top with a hard front-tire) and Dovizioso as they closed their rounds very little behind. Eventually, after the British rider fell, the battle fired up between the two Ducati and Marquez: the pole position finished in Jorge Lorenzo’s hand, who managed to win for just 14 thousandths over Andrea Dovizioso; while the World Champion closed Qualifying 3rd in only 79 thousandths more. Cal Crutchlow got the 4th place ahead of Andrea Iannone and Dani Pedrosa. Danilo Petrucci finished 7th followed by Alvaro Bautista and Alex Rins. Jack Miller, Maverick Viñales and Takaaki Nakagami filled the remaining positions in the top 12.
The fight to get the two positions that give direct access to Q2 was very fierce and started immediately after the beginning of Qualifying. Viñales and Morbidelli were the favorites for these positions. But after the chequered flag had already been flown, two more riders could still get in their way: Zarco and Nakagami tried really hard to conquer these useful positions. The French rider made a mistake in the last sector of the track that cost him the position, while the Japanese rookie managed to obtain the much-wanted result and closed his qualifying round just behind Maverick Viñales, who becomes the only Yamaha in Q2. This way, Takaaki Nakagami got the 2nd place and took Franco Morbidelli the chance to skip the second round of Qualifying. Valentino Rossi ended this round in the worst possible way, and he will start tomorrow’s race from the 18th position on the starting grid.
Q2 ranking
The starting grid
