Marquez clinches breath-taking pole for Red Bull GP of Argentina
Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez has clinched his 24th MotoGP pole position – and second successive – for tomorrow’s twenty-five lap race in Argentina, with teammate Hiroshi Aoyama qualifying 15th.
With track temperatures almost doubling since this morning’s FP3 session, replacement rider Hiroshi was unable to find a better feeling with the Honda RC213V and did not manage to reach Q2. His time of 1’39.715 placed him 15th for tomorrow’s race. Marc, who has been fastest all day, opted for a three-stop strategy in Q2, in order to take maximum advantage of each new tyre. He was able to improve on each exit and his pole time of 1’37.802 was over half a second faster than second place Aleix Espargaro, and only 0.119 off his 2014 pole record.
Tomorrow’s race will start at 16h00 local time.
Marc Marquez
“I am happy today, because we were able to fight for pole and eventually got it. It was a lot of fun, because we used a three-tyre strategy and it worked well. It was important to start from the front tomorrow, because the track is quite dirty and that makes it harder to overtake. We'll see what happens, we expect a pretty tough race with even higher temperatures than today. My strongest rivals - Jorge and Valentino - are starting from the second row, so I hope to have a good start and a strong race.”
Hiroshi Aoyama
“Yesterday I struggled to find a good feeling with the bike and also this morning, I still wasn’t comfortable. Then this afternoon we changed something with the setup and I found some confidence on the bike which allowed me to push. In qualifying we made another step with the setup and improved the lap time but of course it’s not the position we had hoped for. We still have some areas to improve and I hope we can find a step in time for the race.”
Results Session
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
|---|
Location Information
The Termas de Río Hondo Circuit is located 6km from the city which gives the venue its name, in the Province of Santiago del Estero. It was built in a 150 hectare area and officially inaugurated on May 11, 2008, during the visit of Argentina´s Touring Car Racing championship. In… read more.
| Length | 4.806 kilometres / 2.986 miles |
| Width | 16 metres |
| Left corners | 5 |
| Right corners | 9 |
| Longest straight | 1.076 kilometres / 0.669 miles |
| Constructed | 2008 |
| Modified | 2013 |
| Resurfacing | Partly resurfaced before 2018 GP |
Autódromo Provincial Termas de Río Hondo, Termas de Río Hondo, Santiago del Estero Province, Argentina - View in Google Maps
Records
| Pole Position | 1m 37.683s (177.1km/h) Marc Marquez (Honda, 2014) |
| Race Lap | 1m 39.019s (174.7 km/h) Valentino Rossi (Yamaha, 2015) |
| Race Time | 34m13.628s (168.4 km/h) Marc Marquez (Honda, 2016) *shortened race |
| 2022 Race Winner | Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) |
