Dani Pedrosa Wins MotoGP Pole Position In Spain

Dani Pedrosa will start Sunday's 27-lap Spanish GP at Jerez—the 3,000th world championship race—from pole position. The 31-year-old Repsol Honda rider snatched the top spot on the grid from teammate Marc Marquez in the closing moments of 15-minute final qualifying under sunny skies with the defending world champion hot on his heels.

Pedrosa has been fast all weekend, leading practice in both dry and wet conditions. He could have attempted another fast lap but instead sat up. Marquez charged on but a series of mistakes left him 0.049 seconds short at the line. Braving a succession of wasp stings on his cool-off lap, Cal Crutchlow was third-quickest, cementing an all-Honda front row.

Prior to Saturday’s triumph, Pedrosa’s last pole was at Sepang in 2015. “For a year, I have been struggling in qualifying,” he said. “I really wanted to improve in this point. I was already in a good position before the final run. Marc had pole, and I could see his strategy was to be behind me. I focused on myself and managed a good lap.”

Marquez admitted he benefitted from Pedrosa’s tutorship. “I was able to follow Dani for a few laps and learned where I was struggling this weekend,” he said. “I made a mistake in the first corner and nearly crashed. After that, I lost concentration for the last braking and didn’t brake at the correct point. It looks like Dani’s weekend. He’s really strong.”

Because Pedrosa is small and Marquez can win on anything, Crutchlow is now Honda’s Chuck Yeager. That test role bit the British rider in qualifying, losing pole in the final sector of the track. “It’s good for me and my team to be given the job, but it’s hard work,” he said. “We didn’t change so much with the bike, just one thing many, many times.”

Winner of the first two races of the season, Maverick Vinales will lead the second row. “The right side of the tire is really good,” said the Movistar Yamaha rider. “But when I go on the left, we have a lot of spinning. We have to check it tonight and work really hard tomorrow in the warm-up.”

Andrea Iannone made the most of his transfer spot from Q1, ending the second session fifth, his best qualifying since Qatar, where he was on the front row. “We worked in a good direction, and today we improved a lot,” said the factory Suzuki rider. Johann Zarco, first of two Tech 3 Yamahas, completes the second row.

Championship leader Valentino Rossi will start seventh. The 38-year-old Italian also started seventh in Argentina earlier this season and finished second in that race. Rossi’s most recent victory was last year at Catalunya, 14 races ago. He started from pole last year at Jerez and won the race, as well. Jorge Lorenzo was second, with Marquez third.

“Today was not so bad,” Rossi said. “We worked a lot and improved the feeling with the bike. We still have to work, especially in the entry of the corner. I’m not happy with the result from qualifying; I have to start from the third row. That is always difficult, and I think that we can do better.” As we have seen so frequently, Sunday is often Rossi’s finest hour.

Lorenzo will start eighth, the first time the 30-year-old Majorcan has not qualified on the front row at Jerez since joining the premier class in 2008. All of those successes, however, came on factory Yamahas. Since moving to Ducati, Lorenzo has struggled but is showing progress. This weekend, he was ninth in FP1, fourth in FP2, second in FP3, and fourth in FP4.

“My expectations in qualifying were higher than the final position,” Lorenzo admitted. “In the morning, I felt very good with the bike. But unfortunately, I didn’t feel really good with both rear tires. It looks like it was more slippery—not the same grip. I struggled so much to exit the slower corners. I couldn’t be faster than this.”

Aleix Espargaro, aboard one of two factory Aprilias, and Jack Miller, riding a Marc VDS Honda, fell unhurt at different times in the final session. Both KTM riders, Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith, will start 15th and 16th, respectively. “I think these are the fastest lap times that we’ve ever done here in Jerez,” Smith said. “To do a low 1:39 is going in the right direction.”

Weather projections for Sunday are for even warmer track conditions. “For sure, a few riders will pick the hard rear tire,” said Michelin’s Nicolas Goubert. “I’m pretty certain that Marc, for example, has already decided. Dani has not made his decision yet, but he usually chooses slightly softer tires compared to Marc.”

Pedrosa admitted that he has tried every tire option and will make his final decision Sunday on the starting grid. “We have to see what the track is like at race time,” he said. “For sure, we can still make some changes to the bike; maybe we will try something in the warm-up. But the biggest thing is the tire. We will see tomorrow.”