Front row start for Marquez in Motegi with Pedrosa in 6th
Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez will start tomorrow’s Japanese GP from 3rd on the grid after a closely contested qualifying session. Teammate Dani Pedrosa will begin from the second row in 6th position.
The final practice session before qualifying – FP4 – was red flagged after just ten minutes due to a serious crash involving Alex De Angelis. After a delay of twenty five minutes, the session resumed as the riders worked hard to find a good setup in time for qualifying with both Repsol Honda riders pre-qualifying for Q2.
On the first run, Marc was positioned 3rd and Dani 4th as they entered the pits for a fresh rear tyre. Marc improved his time by four tenths and his lap of 1’44.216 (lap 7/7) was enough to earn him a front row start. Dani also improved on his second run and his time of 1’44.582 (lap 8/8) placed him 6th – missing the front row by just 0.366 seconds.
The GP of Japan will commence tomorrow at 14h00 local time.
Marc Marquez
"Today has been another difficult day, but it is important for tomorrow that my hand has not got worse and has remained quite stable. I'm happy, because on a single lap, with new tyres, we were able to achieve a good time and improve on the target we had set ourselves, which was to start from the second row. However, we must be realistic and if it does not rain tomorrow, both Jorge and Valentino are one step ahead and we will be fighting for third place. We are working on the setup of the bike, but it seems that we’re finding it hard to find a good compromise. We are getting closer and I am very happy with all the work the team are doing."
Dani Pedrosa
"Today has not been a great day, because we had some problems with the setup of the bike and I wasn’t riding very comfortably. In the qualifying session I managed to finish in a reasonable position and tomorrow we will try to do our best, be motivated and try to improve. It may be that the weather changes, so we will have to be very focused to try to make the most of our chances."
Results Session
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
|---|
Location Information
Located amongst the vast natural beauty of the northern Kanto district, the twin ring circuit at Motegi in Japan consists of a 1.5 mile oval and a 2.9 mile road course constructed to international standards. Built by Honda as the ultimate test facility in August 1997, the road circuit became… read more.
| Length | 4.801 kilometres / 2.983 miles |
| Width | 15 metres |
| Left corners | 6 |
| Right corners | 8 |
| Longest straight | 0.762 kilometres / 0.473 miles |
| Constructed | 1997 |
Twin Ring Motegi, Haga District, Tochigi, Japan - View in Google Maps
Records
| Pole Position | 1m 43.018s (167.7km/h) Pedro Acosta (KTM, 2024) |
| Race Lap | 1m 44.461s (165.4km/h) Jorge Martin (Ducati, 2024) |
| Race Time | 42m 09.790s (163.9km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati, 2024) |
| 2024 Sprint Winner | Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) |
| 2024 Race Winner | Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) |
