Pole position record blown away by stunning Márquez

Marc Márquez will start Sunday’s 125cc eni Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland from pole position thanks to a fantastic qualifying display on Saturday afternoon at Sachsenring. The 17 year-old Red Bull Ajo Motorsport rider’s blistering time of 1’26.053 was 0.786s faster than that of Gabor Talmacsi, which had stood as the record since 2007.

On a track which had dried out well since this morning’s wet practice session Márquez and Pol Espargaró battled for pole position in the closing stages of qualifying, with the lead time swapping hands on a number of occasions as the pair pushed one another to increasingly faster times. Márquez then pulled out an unmatchable lap towards the end to leave him 0.543s clear of his rival from the Tuenti Racing team, whom he leads in the Championship standings by a single point going into tomorrow’s race.

Bradley Smith (Bancaja Aspar) in third was 1.325s off the pace of Márquez, and Sandro Cortese (Avant Mitsubishi Ajo) will start his home GP from the front row after taking fourth spot on the grid, just nine-thousandths off Smith.

The second row will be comprised of Randy Krummenacher (Stipa-Molenaar Racing), Efrén Vázquez (Tuenti Racing), Tomoyoshi Koyama (Racing Team Germany) and Johann Zarco (WTR San Marino Team). Esteve Rabat (Blusens-STX) and Danny Webb (Andalucia Cajasol) completed the top ten.

The sole crash of the session was experienced by wildcard rider Marvin Fritz (LHF Project Racing), who escaped injury in a fall midway through.