MORBIDELLI STEALS POLE FROM MILLER IN VALENCIA

Franco Morbidelli steals pole from Jack Miller in Valencia – Photo: LAT

Franco Morbidelli has claimed his second pole position of the year after edging out Jack Miller by just 0.096s ahead of the Valencia Grand Prix.

By RHYS VANDERSYDE

The Petronas Yamaha SRT rider set a blistering time of 1m30.191s to steal the top spot away from the Australian Ducati rider at the end of the session.

Rain threatened throughout the day leading near-constant track actively throughout qualifying, but despite a light drizzle between Q1 and Q2, but the track remained dry enough to run slicks throughout.

However, the key title contenders seemed to struggle with the conditions. Championship leader Joan Mir (Suzuki) could only muster the 12th fastest time, just behind his main rival Fabio Quartararo (Petronas Yamaha SRT), the slowest two runners at the end of Q2.

While Alex Rins, who is equal second in the points, on the second factory Suzuki failed to progress out of Q1 and will start from 14th.

LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami put in another strong performance with the third-fastest time to round out the front row.

Johann Zarco (Esponsorama Ducati), Pol Espargaro (Red Bull KTM) and Maverick Vinales (Monster Yamaha) will make up the second row of the grid after the two factory riders took turns at the top of the timesheets earlier in the session.

Aleix Espargaro put his Aprilia in seventh ahead of Francesco Bagnaia (Pramac Ducati) and Brad Binder who was fastest in Q1 to progress through to the final segment of qualifying. Miguel Oliveira rounded out the top 10 on the Tech 3 KTM.

Q1 headlines were dominated by the nasty high-side of Respol Honda rider Alex Marquez.

Surprisingly, after a brief moment, the Spaniard walked away from the incident to make his way back to the pit to continue qualifying on his second bike.

The MotoGP race gets underway 11:45am AEDT tonight and can be viewed on Fox Sports 507.

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