Marc Marquez gently brushed off a comment that Casey Stoner said in a interview with Motosprint regarding the the fact that ‘Marquez likes to humiliate his rivals’ to blast Stoner’s 2011 Misano record into smithereens and take his sixth pole position of the season.
Marquez said that his crash in FP4 didn’t dent his confidence on bit as he but he did admit that the huge gap between himself and his rivals isn’t ‘realistic, a hot lap is one thing, but a race is another and he thinks he can’t escape so easily.
“I’m very happy with this pole position, as we had a really good hot lap,” said Marquez “It’s a shame about the small crash that we had in practice this morning, which was completely my fault. I did a stupid mistake! “When I released the front brake at the very last part, then I moved my finger to open the gas and I touched the front lever a little and lost the front. But the important thing is that I know where I made the mistake.
“In qualifying I felt very comfortable every time on fast laps and was able to put in some quick times. Maybe for one lap the pole distance is a lot, but I do not think it is a real gap for the race. Jorge has a very good pace, Valentino will also be tough to beat, because it is his home race and he has been very strong in practice. I’m sure that he will be fast tomorrow, as will Dani who had some problems in qualifying. The aim is to get a good start, try to ride in the lead group at the front and pick up more world championship points. I have a good pace, but I don’t think I can go alone at the front. I will see after warm-up and especially how I feel in the race. Then I will make my plan.”
Dani Pedrosa still hasn’t found a solution to his grip issues and believes that his problems may stem from the tires or from the track surface, even if tried switching to second bike and with other tires.
Unable to explain the situation the Repsol Honda veteran became nervous and couldn’t find the concentration, so he qualified fourth.
“We had a bit of luck to take fourth on the grid, because we have been having problems with all the rear tyres that we have used,” said Pedrosa. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but I didn’t have any grip in any of the sessions today. In the final free practice session we changed the tyres twice, then in qualifying we again switched to new rubber, but there was never a good response. We don’t know if the problem is with the tyres, with the bike or with the track surface.
“In the final moments we made another change and suddenly I had some grip again, and it is thanks to this that we were able to take the fourth fastest time - although this position was certainly short of our aims for today. For tomorrow, however, we are confident that we can get a good start and have a good race.”
from TWOWHEELSBLOG
