Marquez braves conditions for Phillip Island pole

Full MotoGP qualifying results from Phillip Island

Newly-crowned 2018 MotoGP champion Marc Marquez made the most of tricky conditions to take pole position at Phillip Island ahead of Maverick Vinales as rain created drama in the Q2 session.

Marquez braves conditions for Phillip Island pole

Full MotoGP qualifying results from Phillip Island

Newly-crowned 2018 MotoGP champion Marc Marquez made the most of tricky conditions to take pole position at Phillip Island ahead of Maverick Vinales as rain created drama in the Q2 session.

Marquez has clinched his fifth consecutive MotoGP pole position at the Australian circuit but had to battle his rivals and the weather as rain circled the track throughout Q2.

The Repsol Honda rider made the most of the brief dry period in the middle of the pole position shootout to set a 1m 29.199s to initially pull out half a second on the field, but with Vinales aiming for three runs in the session he responded to trim the gap to three-tenths of a second.

But as rain returned for the final three minutes of Q2 none of the riders were able to better their times significantly to hand pole to Marquez from Movistar Yamaha’s Vinales with Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Johann Zarco completing the front row.

After demonstrating impressive pace in FP4, Andrea Iannone had to settle for the front of the second row, missing out on the front row by just 0.007s, with Suzuki team-mate Alex Rins just one spot back in fifth place.

Local star Jack Miller impressed for Pramac Ducati with a brave performance, replicating a familiar sight to his charge to pole position in Argentina in mixed conditions, but had to settle for sixth place.

Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi heads up row three ahead of fellow countryman Danilo Petrucci (Pramac Ducati) and Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) who both struggled for pace in the intermittent conditions.

Hafizh Syahrin produced one of his best qualifying performances of his rookie campaign to take tenth on his Tech 3, shaking off a heavy FP3 crash at Turn 1, with Red Bull KTM’s Pol Espargaro in 11th having progressed from Q1 along with Alvaro Baustia.

But it would turn out to be a painful Q2 for Bautista as he crashed out heavily during the early stages of the session on the factory Ducati. The Spanish rider is filling in for the injured Jorge Lorenzo at the Australian round.

That saw Karel Abraham narrowly miss out on Q2 using Bautista’s Angel Nieto Ducati GP17 with stand-in Mike Jones on the Czech rider’s bike for the Phillip Island race weekend.

Takaaki Nakagami rode solo for the LCR Honda squad with Cal Crutchlow confirmed out of action following ankle surgery after sustaining a nasty injury in his FP2 crash. The Japanese rider has secured 14th on the grid ahead of Marc VDS Honda’s Franco Morbidelli with Red Bull KTM’s Bradley Smith slotting into 16th place.

That left Dani Pedrosa relegated to the lowest-qualifying Honda in 18th place.

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