World champion Marc Marquez will start in pole position for the Aragon MotoGP after smashing his own lap record to qualify ahead of Jorge Lorenzo yesterday.

Honda’s Marquez set a blistering time of one minute 46.635 seconds on his first lap, which was enough to secure first place on the grid for today’s race despite the Spaniard crashing later in the session.

Fellow Spaniard Lorenzo pushed Marquez hard, but came home 0.108 seconds slower while Ducati’s Andrea Iannone was third.

Last year’s race winner Lorenzo is well placed as he resumes his battle for this year’s championship title with Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi, who qualified sixth, 0.857 seconds off the pace.

“I have still got doubts in some areas and I’m not completely confident in braking,” Lorenzo said. “Marc was very fast but I got close to him in the end.”

Rossi leads the championship on 247 points with Lorenzo 23 points behind.

Marquez has 184 points.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.