MotoGP Le Mans Qualifying: Fabio Quartararo storms to home pole position

May 15, 2021 EMR Writer

Fabio Quartararo pinches pole position in the dying moments of Q2.

MotoGP, you really cannot write the script for it as the riders will tear it to pieces within minutes. It looked like a dream Honda 1-2-3 at the flag with Marc Marquez sat in pole position after seeing the chequered flag, but this is MotoGP and it’s not over until the fat lady sings or in this case 3 Yamaha’s and 2 Ducati’s sing demoting Marquez down to P6 as the factory Yamaha riders took a 1-2 in the session thanks to Fabio Quartararo’s blistering lap time which took the top spot from his teammate Vinales.

Quartararo has a nation looking at him to win the race this weekend after putting their hopes into Zarco for so long, starting from pole position puts him in the best place possible to do so going into the final lap with a ‘win it or bin it’ mentality nearly crashing at the last corner laying it all on the line with his teammate only 0.081 behind him, it’s going to be carnage going into the Dunlop chicane tomorrow that’s a fact.

Jack Miller finished the session in third place, the Australian rider comes into the Le Mans weekend after a win at Jerez and has been riding pretty carefree as he does so well pushing had on a wet track with slick tyres and very nearly crashing many times, fortune favours the brave as we have seen today with Miller notching up a front row start ahead of tomorrows race.

Starting on the second row we see Franco Morbidelli who injured his knee earlier on today when attempting to do a practice bike swap, clearly the injury didn’t phase the Italian starting in fourth place today ahead of home rider Johann Zarco who fired in a very late lap time to beat Marc Marquez’s time by just 0.160 seconds pushing the eight-time champion back another place. There is no doubt Marc Marquez will be disappointed today after staring down the barrel of a pole position just to be demoted to P6, despite being demoted P6 is still a very good start and there’s no reason why the master of mixed conditions cannot battle for a podium tomorrow.

Row three is occupied by the other Honda riders who made up their 1-2-3 with Nakagami stuck between the Repsol Honda’s of Marquez just ahead and Pol Espargaro just behind in P8, Nakagami’s change back to the 2019 chassis is boding very well for him allowing him more grip and feel on the bike with Espargaro crashing once again. Valentino Rossi confirmed he found something in the Jerez test and it’s coming to fruition qualifying in P9, let’s see what he can do tomorrow.

Lorenzo Savadori is a rider on some people’s name lists now after today with his spectacular lap time in Q1 to elevate him to Q2, he qualified in P11 and has been fairly impressive all weekend. Further down the order we see title leader Francesco Bagnaia struggling down in P16 tomorrow but we know he is very good at making up places during races so there isn’t too much to worry about.

Q2 Results –