As a result of the tragic death of Luis Salom following his crash in Turn 12 yesterday, the Catalunya track was modified for the remainder of the race weekend. You can see the changes in the track illustration below (the red corners are replaced by the black line). As a result, riders had to quickly adapt to the new layout before qualifying, and the Hondas seemed to benefit.
Marc Marquez (Honda) took pole position with a big gap over second quickest Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha). Dani Pedrosa (Honda) qualified third. You will see the remaining riders’ positions in Q2 below.
| Pos. | Num. | Rider | Nation | Team | Bike | Time | Gap 1st/Prev. |
| 1 | 93 | Marc MARQUEZ | SPA | Repsol Honda Team | Honda | 1’43.589 | |
| 2 | 99 | Jorge LORENZO | SPA | Movistar Yamaha MotoGP | Yamaha | 1’44.056 | 0.467 / 0.467 |
| 3 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | SPA | Repsol Honda Team | Honda | 1’44.307 | 0.718 / 0.251 |
| 4 | 8 | Hector BARBERA | SPA | Avintia Racing | Ducati | 1’44.322 | 0.733 / 0.015 |
| 5 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | ITA | Movistar Yamaha MotoGP | Yamaha | 1’44.324 | 0.735 / 0.002 |
| 6 | 25 | Maverick VIÑALES | SPA | Team SUZUKI ECSTAR | Suzuki | 1’44.329 | 0.740 / 0.005 |
| 7 | 35 | Cal CRUTCHLOW | GBR | LCR Honda | Honda | 1’44.366 | 0.777 / 0.037 |
| 8 | 29 | Andrea IANNONE | ITA | Ducati Team | Ducati | 1’44.458 | 0.869 / 0.092 |
| 9 | 9 | Danilo PETRUCCI | ITA | OCTO Pramac Yakhnich | Ducati | 1’44.911 | 1.322 / 0.453 |
| 10 | 4 | Andrea DOVIZIOSO | ITA | Ducati Team | Ducati | 1’45.029 | 1.440 / 0.118 |
| 11 | 45 | Scott REDDING | GBR | OCTO Pramac Yakhnich | Ducati | 1’45.030 | 1.441 / 0.001 |
| 12 | 44 | Pol ESPARGARO | SPA | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | Yamaha | 1’45.218 | 1.629 / 0.188 |
See more of MD’s great photography:
Hannah (Hector) Barbera faster than Rossi, Vinales and his Ducati team mates. That’s a surprise.
it’s funny that the Hondas would benefit from the track changes as they have been having trouble accelerating out of slow tight turns and this basically adds 3 MORE tight turns to the course.
In this case it had nothing to do with driving out the corner. Those better lap times has more to do with steering geometry/suspension setup. The Hondas were probably falling into turns quicker.
I brake like that all the time. Going to work, heading out for dinner, simply tooling around the neighborhood…just like that.
Yeah.