Marquez smashes record to take fifth pole of the season

Marquez is congratulated by a team member

Repsol Honda's Marc Marquez has shattered Casey Stoner's pole position record in Silverstone by 1.329 seconds with a stunning lap time of 2'00.691 (Stoner, 2'02.020 in 2011). It was a breath-taking qualifying session which saw Marc and title rival Lorenzo swapping fastest laps from the beginning, but it was the young rookie who emerged on top securing his ninth front row start of the season.

Teammate Dani Pedrosa, who struggled in this morning's FP3 session, improved in FP4 where he was second fastest and found a very good race pace. However, a small mistake on his final flying lap in Q2 relegated him from a provisional front row start to 5th with a time of 2'01.624, placing him on the second row for tomorrow's twenty lap race.

Marc Marquez 1st 2'00.691
"I am very happy with pole position and this one carries even more value as we set a new record! The lap times were very fast, we managed an incredible lap and Jorge set the bar very high for us. We put in a better hot lap than I had expected; I hadn't anticipated riding so fast! The race will be tough tomorrow and we will have to remain very focused, because I think that Jorge is the strongest rival that we have here. We will need to get a good start and see if we can stick with him"

Dani Pedrosa 5th 2'01.624
"We improved our pace today and drew some positive conclusions from practice. However, in qualifying things didn't go that well for us. I made a couple of mistakes and was unable to get a better starting position. We will start from fifth, so the important thing for us will be to focus on getting the setup right, putting in the maximum effort to get a good start and have a strong race"

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