5-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez took pole position for Argentina GP after beating Yamaha of Maverick Vinales by just one-hundredths of a second.
Q1 was led by Takaaki Nakagami, who set 1:39.279s and improved to 1:39.064s to top the times.
Aleix Espargaro held the second place but got demoted by his brother Pol Espargaro in KTM to transfer to Q2 with Nakagami.
Behind the Espargaro brothers was Miguel Oliveira on Tech 3 KTM, ahead of Karel Abraham while Alex Rins was out in Q1 after a great performance all weekend.
Francesco Bagnaia was 7th in Q1 while Johann Zarco, Joan Mir, Tito Rabat and Hafizh Syahrin will start on back of the grid ahead of Andrea Iannone, the slowest rider on Aprilia.
"In FP4 we were trying to have more engine brake to be able to slow down the bike in a better way, but in the end it seems that we have gone in the opposite direction," explained Iannone.
"We make changes to get one thing and we get the exact opposite. We need to understand what happened.
"Certainly this morning I did not find the same bike as yesterday and we are trying to analyse the reasons. These are things that can happen in a period of apprenticeship.
"Tomorrow we will return at least to yesterday's level, but it is a shame to start last when we could have fought for the top 10 here."
Q2
Marquez led the session early on, setting a handful of laptimes, his best being 1:38.767s.
Marquez's stablemate, Cal Crutchlow was the first to dip under 1:39 in the LCR Honda but moments afterwards, Vinales made it to top with 1:38.458s.
Marquez made his move in the end, getting his fifth pole position in Argentina with an astonishing timd of 1:38.304, just 0.154s quicker than the Yamaha of Vinales, who got pole last time out in Qatar.
Andrea Dovizioso was second when Marquez only had his first run, but as Marquez did his second run, Vinales dropped to 2nd, ultimately resulting in Dovizioso's third place to lock the Honda-Yamaha-Ducati front row.
Valentino Rossi had a good result in Q2, just 0.241s off Marquez's time to secure first place on second row, while Jack Miller and Franco Morbidelli completed Row 2.
Morbidelli's rookie teammate Fabio Quartararo had a good weekend, being seven quickest, ahead of Cal Crutchlow who failed to improve on second run to slot into 8th.
Takaaki Nakagami and Danilo Petrucci completed top 10, while Jorge Lorenzo had another bad session after making it to Q2 in FP2, ending up slowest in Q2 behind KTM of Pol Espargaro.
Comments