---
title: "Marquez dominates qualifying at Catalunya"
canonical: "https://readmotorsport.com/2016/06/04/marquez-dominates-qualifying-catalunya/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Alex Murray"
section: "MotoGP News"
published: "2016-06-04T20:13:10Z"
modified: "2016-06-04T20:13:10Z"
---

# Marquez dominates qualifying at Catalunya

Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez has taken his third pole position of the season at the Catalan GP in dominant fashion.

The Spaniard, who had received an engine upgrade before the Catalan GP got underway, led the Qualifying 2 session from start to finish after becoming the first rider to set a 1’43 lap around the new Catalunya layout.

His time would be unchallenged until the final moments of the session, when the double world champion put in a time of 1m43.589s, finishing a full 0.467 seconds in front of his nearest rival in Jorge Lorenzo. Marquez will be looking to take advantage of a front row start yet again, after turning both of his poles so far this season into wins.

Jorge Lorenzo will be disappointed that he was unable to challenge Marquez, however, it seems that the new circuit layout introduced after the death of Moto2 rider Luis Salom favours the Honda rather than the Yamaha. Dani Pedrosa recorded his first front row start since Valencia 2015 with a third place in the session. Pedrosa was 0.251s behind Lorenzo, but will be pleased to finally get his front row duck off his back for this season.

![Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images Sport](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2016/06/538086310.jpg)

Hector Barbera put in a storming performance to finish as the top independent aboard his GP14.2 Ducati. Barbera was only 0.015s off Dani Pedrosa in third, and will certainly take some pride that he was able to do so well on home soil. Valentino Rossi was behind Barbera and was only 0.002s off the Avintia rider.

Maverick Vinales was in sixth, closely followed by Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Iannone in seventh and eighth, who were both less than a second off Marc Marquez’s blistering time.

![Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images Sport](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2016/06/537931014.jpg)

Danilo Petrucci and Andrea Dovizioso rounded out the top ten, with Scott Redding and Pol Espargaro, fresh from his KTM announcement, finished just outside the top ten in 11th and 12th place respectively.

Q1 saw a few riders have disappointing finishes, with Aleix Espargaro and Bradley Smith both missing out on a top ten finish. With Espargaro likely looking for a new ride for next season, this performance will certainly not do him any favours.

It was also clear to see that all of the riders were showing their support for Luis Salom during the qualifying session. All of the riders carried LS39 stickers in support of Salom, who sadly passed away yesterday at the age of 24.

![Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images Sport](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2016/06/538083172.jpg)

Tomorrow’s race will get underway at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya at 13:00 BST, with warm up starting early at 08:40 BST.