MotoGP Qatar: Tech3's Zarco snatches pole with qualifying record

Tech3 Yamaha's Johann Zarco took pole position for the opening round of the 2018 MotoGP season at Qatar, establishing a new lap record by almost a quarter of a second.

Zarco's best laptime of 1m53.680s beat Jorge Lorenzo's existing record set in 2008 by 0.247 seconds, and gave him his third premier class pole by 0.202s ahead of reigning champion Marc Marquez's Honda.

Marquez was quickest on the first runs in the second part of qualifying and led on a 1m54.368s, but was then knocked off the top spot by Andrea Dovizioso, who set a 1m54.074s on his works Ducati.

Dovizioso looked good for pole heading into the final stages, but was shunted down to fifth in the final order amid a late flurry of improvements led by Zarco and Marquez.

Danilo Petrucci set a lap just 0.005s slower than Marquez to take the final spot on the front row and end up the best of the Ducati runners on his Pramac-run GP18, while LCR Honda rider Cal Crutchlow edged out Dovizioso for fourth by two thousandths.

Alex Rins completed the second row on the best of the Suzukis, ahead of Dani Pedrosa's Honda and Valentino Rossi, who was seven tenths off the pace on the quicker of the two works Yamahas.

His team-mate Maverick Vinales was slowest of all in Q2 and the only rider not to get within a second of Zarco.

He will start 12th, behind the Ducati of Lorenzo, Jack Miller on the second Pramac machine and Andrea Iannone's Suzuki.

While Vinales was the highest-profile rider having to make his way through Q1, his benchmark lap of 1m54.637s was beaten in the dying stages of the session by Miller.

The Australian had already established himself in second when he logged a time just 0.003s faster than Vinales at the chequered flag.

Just missing out on advancing to Q2 was Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro, who will head up the fifth row in front of leading rookie Franco Morbidelli (Marc VDS Honda) and Hafizh Syharin on the second Tech3 Yamaha.

Scott Redding will make his debut for Aprilia starting 18th, one place behind Avintia Ducati's Tito Rabat.

Both KTM riders suffered problems, with Bradley Smith 20th after his RC16 stopped on the way out of the pits and Pol Espargaro 22nd after encountering similar issues.

LCR Honda's Takaaki Nakagami could do no better than 23rd after a crash in FP4 just before qualifying.

Starting grid

Pos	Rider	Team	Bike	Time	Gap
1	Johann Zarco	Tech3 Yamaha	Yamaha	1m53.680s	-
2	Marc Marquez	Honda	Honda	1m53.882s	0.202s
3	Danilo Petrucci	Pramac Ducati	Ducati	1m53.887s	0.207s
4	Cal Crutchlow	LCR Honda	Honda	1m54.072s	0.392s
5	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	Ducati	1m54.074s	0.394s
6	Alex Rins	Suzuki	Suzuki	1m54.339s	0.659s
7	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	Honda	1m54.368s	0.688s
8	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	Yamaha	1m54.389s	0.709s
9	Jorge Lorenzo	Ducati	Ducati	1m54.431s	0.751s
10	Jack Miller	Pramac Ducati	Ducati	1m54.449s	0.769s
11	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	Suzuki	1m54.619s	0.939s
12	Maverick Vinales	Yamaha	Yamaha	1m54.707s	1.027s
13	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	Aprilia	1m55.140s	1.460s
14	Franco Morbidelli	MVDS Honda	Honda	1m55.169s	1.489s
15	Hafizh Syahrin	Tech3 Yamaha	Yamaha	1m55.258s	1.578s
16	Tito Rabat	Avintia Ducati	Ducati	1m55.273s	1.593s
17	Scott Redding	Aprilia	Aprilia	1m55.380s	1.700s
18	Thomas Luthi	MVDS Honda	Honda	1m55.381s	1.701s
19	Karel Abraham	Aspar Ducati	Ducati	1m55.392s	1.712s
20	Bradley Smith	KTM	KTM	1m55.553s	1.873s
21	Alvaro Bautista	Aspar Ducati	Ducati	1m55.638s	1.958s
22	Pol Espargaro	KTM	KTM	1m55.706s	2.026s
23	Takaaki Nakagami	LCR Honda	Honda	1m56.401s	2.721s
24	Xavier Simeon	Avintia Ducati	Ducati	1m56.545s	2.865s