MADRID, 25 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish rider Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda) has won pole position this Saturday for the MotoGP race of the Portuguese Grand Prix, the first round of the Motorcycle World Championship, in which the current world champion, the Italian Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), and the also Spanish Jorge Martín (Ducati) will accompany him in the front row.
The Catalan, who had to go through Q1 and slipped in with the worst times in Q2, once again used cunning, knowing that his ‘RC213V’ could not compete within one lap with the Borgo Panigale bikes. Thus, he tried to take advantage of the top speed of the official Ducati.
With the stopwatch at zero and behind the slipstream of the Italian Enea Bastianini, Bagnaia’s teammate, the man from Cervera set a spectacular 1:37.226 that earned him a 64 thousandths beat over ‘Pecco’ and set a new track record.
With this, the first starting position was guaranteed for the two tests in Portimao, the sprint race this Saturday and the long one on Sunday. In both he will share the line with Bagnaia and with Jorge Martín from Madrid.
Among the rest of the Spaniards, Maverick Viñales (Aprilia) will start seventh, while Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia) will start twelfth, ahead of Alex Márquez (Ducati) and Joan Mir (Repsol Honda). In addition, Alex Rins (Honda) will start sixteenth, Augusto Fernández (KTM) nineteenth and Raúl Fernández (Aprilia), twentieth.
The sprint race will begin this Saturday at 4:00 p.m. Spanish peninsular time, and 12 laps will be completed, half that of Sunday’s race. The first classified will add 12 points, the second nine and the third seven, and from the fourth to the ninth they will add six to one, respectively.