Ninth consecutive Sachsenring pole for Marc Márquez

The team planned the perfect strategy, which was to try and use three tyres, and I think that’s what gave me pole position

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Marc Márquez placed sixth in FP3, tenth in FP4 –despite a small crash at Turn 1– and set the best time on his final lap in qualifying.

The Repsol Honda rider has started from pole at Sachsenring for nine years across three classes: Once in 125cc, twice in Moto2 and six times in MotoGP.

Dani Pedrosa took a step forward on day two in Germany, setting the tenth best time in qualifying.

Marc Márquez

Honestly, I didn’t really feel we would be able to take pole today, but we did and it’s fantastic. The team planned the perfect strategy, which was to try and use three tyres, and I think that’s what gave me pole position. I knew the two Ducatis were very fast on new tyres, but already during my second run, I understood that I would be able to push more on my next and final exit, on the hard tyre option, which was the one I was feeling best with. I did it, but I also made a few mistakes, one in turn three where I nearly crashed! Anyway, I kept pushing and pushing on my final lap, and finally 25 thousandths of a second gave me the pole. I’m sorry for Danilo [Petrucci], but we’re both on the front row and that’s what ultimately counts. Regarding tomorrow, I think we’ll have two races—I mean the first 15 laps and the second 15 laps. In the first half, everyone will be fast but in the second half the tyres will drop, and that moment will be the key. We’ve worked a lot to try and keep our pace on used tyres in the high ’21s, but it’s tough and will also be tough tomorrow.

Dani Pedrosa

Today we made a good improvement from yesterday, but we’re still struggling to find the correct setting in some areas, particularly to fully exploit the new tyres in qualifying. So unfortunately, our grid position isn’t very good, also because lap times were very tight. Overall, we did improve our race pace, so tomorrow it will be important to try and start well and then manage the tyres well over race distance.