Second row start for Marquez and Pedrosa in Catalunya GP after tight Qualifying session
It’s been another tough qualifying day for the Repsol Honda team in Catalunya after Dani Pedrosa was narrowly squeezed out of the top ten in FP3, therefore forcing him to take part in Q1. Dani secured his place in Q2 with ease after recording a lap time of 1’41.188, half a second faster than second place Iannone, and was promoted to the final qualifying shootout.
Both riders exited the pits immediately in Q2 with Marc taking provisional pole. On their second exits other riders posted hot laps and demoted Marc from the top as the battle for pole position intensified. Finally, with only 0.382 seconds separating the top six riders, Marc took 4th place with 1’40.754 (lap 7/7) and Dani 6th with 1’40.928 (lap 6/7).
Marc Marquez
"Today went fairly well. To be honest, the objective was to get onto the front row; it's a shame that in the end it eluded us, but Aleix and Maverick were very fast. For tomorrow's race, I think that Jorge has the best pace, although we shouldn't forget about Valentino and also Dani. They are all dangerous, but we will try to give 100% in front of the home fans in order to be as close as possible to them. We'll see if we can keep with them when we get to the end of the race."
Dani Pedrosa
"It was a difficult qualifying session because at this track in particular the soft tyre peaks on the first lap and then drops down. We had to go through Q1, because this morning we had a problem and couldn't go directly into Q2 after I made a small mistake on my final run in FP3. As has been typical recently, the times are very tight, so we will be starting from sixth for the race but we will continue working tomorrow morning in order to try and improve further."
Results Session
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
|---|
Location Information
In 1989, through the joint collaboration of the Catalan Autonomous Government, the Montmeló Town Council and the Royal Automobile Club of Catalunya (RACC), work began on giving one of Europe’s most beautiful cities a state of the art race track to match. The Circuit de Catalunya opened on the doorstep… read more.
| Length | 4.627 kilometres / 2.875 miles |
| Width | 12 metres |
| Left corners | 5 |
| Right corners | 8 |
| Longest straight | 1.047 kilometres / 0.651 miles |
| Constructed | 1991 |
| Modified | 2018 |
Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Montmeló, Catalunya, Spain - View in Google Maps
Records
| Pole Position | 1m38.639s (169.9km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati, 2023) |
| Race Lap | 1m39.939 (167.7km/h) Johann Zarco (Ducati, 2021) |
| Race Time | 40'21.749 (166.1km/h) Miguel Oliveira (KTM, 2021) |
| 2023 Sprint Winner | Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) |
| 2023 Race Winner | Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) |
