Espargaro races to pole in record time in Catalonia

Aleix Espargaro rode his Aprilia into pole position for the Catalonia MotoGP after a “crazy” lap in a track record time in yesterday’s qualifying for the ninth round of the world championship.The Spaniard will be joined on the front row today by Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia, who won last week in Italy, and the Yamaha of world champion Fabio Quartararo.Espargaro lies eight points adrift of Quartararo in the standings and will have high hopes of lifting his local race after emerging fastest in practice.In the third session he blitzed to a new lap record of 1min 38.771 at the circuit outside Barcelona in scorching conditions with track temperature hitting 55C.And then he promptly broke his own mark shortly after in qualifying with a time of 01:38.742, to deny Bagnaia by 0.031sec.“It has been the most difficult lap of all season. The conditions were tricky. I was talking with the team and I was not sure whether to go under the 1m39s, so then with the first time attack I saw many riders into the 1m39.0s, so I had to go 1m38s if I wanted the pole position so it was all or nothing,” said the pole-sitter. “I did an absolutely crazy lap, sliding everywhere and actually, I didn’t enjoy the lap, I was on the limit at every single corner and when I activated the rear rideheight device on the last straight I said, ‘You closed the lap, you are a lucky man’.“So when I saw P1 I was even more happy. Let’s see if this can give me an advantage for tomorrow’s race.” This was the 32-year-old’s fourth career pole and second of 2022. Quartararo approaches today’s race with optimism, saying: “I still have a card to play”. Ducatis dominate the second row with Prima Primac’s Johann Zarco and Jorge Martin either side of Gresini Racing’s Fabio di Giannantonio. Starting towards the rear of the grid after qualifying 21st is Stefan Bradl called up to replace Honda’s Marc Marquez.The six-time world champion underwent surgery on his right arm in the United States with doctors declaring on Friday the operation was a success.Marquez will remain in America for a few days before returning to Spain to continue his recovery. He is expected to miss the rest of the 2022 season.Alex Marquez, his brother, was also absent from qualifying after falling hard in fourth practice with the Honda-LCR rider taken to the medical centreMotoGP grid after qualifying for the ninth round of the 2022 world championship:1st row1. Aleix Espargaro (ESP/Aprilia), 2. Francesco Bagnaia (ITA/Ducati), 3. Fabio Quartararo (FRA/Yamaha)2nd row4. Johann Zarco (FRA/Ducati-Pramac), 5. Fabio Di Giannantonio (ITA/Ducati-Gresini), 6. Jorge Martin (ESP/Ducati-Pramac)3rd row7. Alex Rins (ESP/Suzuki), 8. Maverick Vinales (ESP/Aprilia), 9. Luca Marini (ITA/Ducati-VR46)4th row10. Pol Espargaro (ESP/Honda), 11. Jack Miller (AUS/Ducati), 12. Takaaki Nakagami (JAP/Honda-LCR)5th row13. Marco Bezzecchi (ITA/Ducati-VR46), 14. Enea Bastianini (ITA/Ducati-Gresini), 15. Brad Binder (AFS/KTM)6th row16. Miguel Oliveira (POR/KTM), 17. Joan Mir (ESP/Suzuki), 18. Franco Morbidelli (ITA/Yamaha)7th row19. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA/Yamaha-RNF), 20. Remy Gardner (AUS/KTM-Tech3), 21. Stefan Bradl (GER/Honda-HRC)8th row22. Michele Pirro (ITA/Ducati-Aruba), 23. Darryn Binder (AFS/Yamaha-RNF), 24. Raul Fernandez (ESP/KTM-Tech3)9th row25. Alex Marquez (ESP/Honda-LCR)