MotoGP: Lorenzo Beats Dovizioso To Pole In Aragon GP

The 2018 MotoGP Aragon Grand Prix will see Ducati's Jorge Lorenzo start on pole after a smashing qualifying session. The Spaniard lead the Aragon GP qualifying on Saturday by 0.014s over teammate Andrea Dovizioso, while Honda's Marc Marquez could only set the third fastest lap time, managing a front row start. Both Lorenzo and Dovizioso set their fastest laps times on their last runs in Q2. For Yamaha's Valentino Rossi, this was his worst qualifying session for the year after being eliminated in Q1 itself.

Marquez set the pace in Q2 with a time of 1m46,960s. He was over a tenth of a second clear of Lorenzo. However, the Honda rider made a mistake on Turn 12 in the final shuffle dropping to third as both the Ducati riders benefitted from the slipstream to post better times. Lorenzo bagged the pole with a time of 1m46.881s, while Marquez was 0.065s behind the pole-sitter.

Coming fourth was LCR Honda rider Cal Crutchlow despite a crash in the closing stages, while Suzuki's Andrea Iannone will start fifth ahead of Honda's Dani Pedrosa. Pramac Ducati's Danilo Petrucci will start seventh followed by Alvaro Bautista of Nieto Ducati, Alex Rins of Suzuki and Jack Miller of Pramac Ducati, completing the top 10 positions.  

The fastest of the Q1 lot, Yamaha's Maverick Vinales and Takaaki Nakagami of LCR Honda complete the Q2 order and will start 11th and 12th.

For Rossi, the Italian saw his worst qualifying performance since the 2006 Dutch TT and was only the fifth-fastest rider in the opening runs. The rider was about half a second slower than his teammate, but got caught up in the closing minutes and was unable to post a hot lap. This puts Rossi in 18th place on the grid, behind Franco Morbidelli (Honda), Johann Zarco (Tech3 Yamaha), Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia), Bradley Smith (KTM) and Karel Abraham (Nieto Ducati).

Pol Espargaro of KTM won't be participating in the Aragon GP after suffering a crash on Saturday morning during practice. The rider suffered a shattered collar bone, but is now recovering. At the back of the grid are Apriia's Scott Redding, and Avintia Ducati's Xavier Simon and Jordi Torres, the latter makes his MotoGP debut.