Maverick Viñales denied Andrea Dovizioso pole position in front of his home crowd, by swooping in over the checkered flag with a stunning lap that pushed him to the top, knocking Dovizioso down to second.
Of course, there was the small matter of Q1 first, which saw the two Aspar Ducatis of Alvaro Bautista and Karel Abraham through to Q2. All was not straightforward however, as laps were being cancelled across the grid for exceeding track limits.
Jack Miller was first to fall victim to this, after exceeding track limits at turn eleven and having his lap – that saw him sitting in second and ready to go through to Q2, cancelled. Jonas Folger had put in a fantastic flying lap which saw him sitting in first. However, his flying lap was cancelled in what could be described as a harsh penalty from the stewards and he was pushed back to sixth.
As we all know, anything can happen in qualifying. But it all comes down to the closing minutes, once all riders had come into the pits to change tyres.
With one and a half minutes to go, Dovizioso set a lap that pushed him into provisional pole, but he was denied it once Viñales took the flag. Marc Marquez rounds out the front row of the grid, despite having a lap time cancelled and a crash in the last minute of the session at turn thirteen. Cal Crutchlow also had a lap cancelled, but he will still start from fourth on the grid for the race tomorrow.
Jorge Lorenzo had an incredible run, and will start from fifth. He briefly led the session and was constantly improving on his times, but unfortunately for the Spaniard he couldn’t match the pace of those in front.
Top ten:
- Maverick Viñales (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) – 1:32.439
- Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) +0.162
- Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda) +0.197
- Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda) +0.329
- Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team) +0.353
- Johann Zarco (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) +0.446
- Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) +0.553
- Danilo Petrucci (OCTO Pramac Racing) +0.558
- Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing Team Gresini) +0.710
- Alvaro Bautista (Pull&Bear Aspar Team) +0.978
