Johann Zarco storms to home pole position and says “the chance of winning is becoming bigger” as he pleases 100,000 plus fans in Le Mans.
Qualifying 1 started with several big names in the mix with Danilo Petrucci, Cal Crutchlow, Dani Pedrosa and Alex Rins all having to fight it out to get into QP2.
As the first flying laps got under way Alvaro Bautista continued his torrid time on the GP17 by crashing on his first flying lap, most riders opted to use the first flying lap as a high speed warm up lap.
Pedrosa posted a opening flying lap of 1:32.441 immediately bettered by Danilo Petrucci who opened his session with a 1:31.967, Alex Rins then cam through and knocked Dani Pedrosa out with a 1:32.401, Pedrosa responded straight away with a 1:32.061.
Cal Crutchlow who only had the use of 1 bike after a crash in FP4 ended the first flying laps in P4 using a used soft rear on his first runs, compatriot Scott Redding is continuing his struggles on board the Gresini Aprillia finishing QP1 in the lower quarter of the results.
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Crutchlow had a massive high-side out of Turn 8 Garage Vert landing heavily on his hip and back, Cal clearly hurt had to be stretched off but gave the fans track-side the thumbs up whilst on the stretcher this caused the session to be red flagged on the final seconds meaning Petrucci and Pedrosa managed to get through on there first run times.
Pol Espargaro also crashed into Turn 3 at the end of the session.
Qualifying 2 opened with Aleix Espargaro have a spectacular crash through turn 2 rider was okay and quickly ran back to the pits to climb on-board his spare Aprillia.
It was Petrucci that initiated a row of sensational lap record laps with a 1:31.658 followed by home favourite Johann Zarco seconds later who posted a 1:31.645, after the first runs it was suprising to see the 2 Movistar Yamaha’s of Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi in P8 and P9 after excellent performances in free practice.
Marquez on his second run stole provisional pole form underneath the Frenchman with a 1:31.315 but Zarco was on a sensational lap of a 1:31.185, Marquez tried to respond but was unable to respond to the flying Frenchman.
Listen to the French fans! ??@JohannZarco1 has sent them wild!#FrenchGP pic.twitter.com/iOo8KLGqZ1
— MotoGP™??? (@MotoGP) May 19, 2018
With the stage set tomorrow looks like it could be a classic encounter at the Bugatti Circuit, with hometwon hero on pole championship leader in second and Andrea Dovizioso just behind him on row 2 tomorrow should prove to be a fantastic race.
Full qualifying results can be found here.
Featured Image Credit: motogp.com
