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Spaniard Jorge Martin has shattered the Phillip Island circuit record in qualifying for the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix, the Ducati rider slashing more than half a second from his previous marker set 12 months ago on Saturday morning to take pole position for the second successive year.
Martin, who came to Australia after crashing from a comfortable lead in last Sunday’s Indonesian Grand Prix to relinquish the championship advantage to Ducati stablemate Francesco Bagnaia, was untouchable in the chase for pole, his session-best lap of one minute 27.246 seconds shaving 0.521s from his own all-time Phillip Island lap record, after breaking the 2013 benchmark set by Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) last year.
Jorge Martin (front) tears around the track in qualifying on Saturday.Credit: Getty Images
Martin led KTM’s Brad Binder by 0.4s, the South African rider finishing second for the best qualifying result of his MotoGP career. Bagnaia, the reigning world champion who has an 18-point series lead with five events remaining in 2023, rounded out the front row of the grid, 0.468s adrift of Martin.
The pole was Martin’s third of the season, and gives Ducati its best possible starting position to snap a Phillip Island hoodoo that stretches back to 2010, the last win of Australian Casey Stoner’s four successive victories for the Italian manufacturer.
“It was a nice lap and the pace is really good, so hopefully we are able to make the difference in the race,” Martin said.
“It will be a long race, and we don’t have a lot of information for it, it will be difficult to understand both rear and front tyres, but we will manage to try.”
Martin, fastest in the first practice session of the Phillip Island weekend on Friday, made his intentions clear in qualifying when he set a time of 1:27.846 early in the 15-minute session, Binder the only rider to get within four-tenths of a second in the early stages. The Ducati rider then found another gear as the session concluded, lopping a whopping 0.6s off that time to underline his dominance.
Australia’s Jack Miller qualified eighth for KTM, finishing 0.828s behind Martin and expressing his frustration with Aprilia rider Aleix Espargaro (fourth) as the session wound down, Miller feeling he was obstructed by the Spaniard on his final lap as he aimed at a top-six starting position.
Last year’s Australian Grand Prix victor Alex Rins (Honda) withdrew from the race weekend ahead of Saturday morning practice, the Spaniard unable to take his place on the grid after returning to action last weekend in Indonesia from missing four months with a broken right leg suffered at the Italian Grand Prix.
Rins, the only rider on the current grid to win in the Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP categories in Australia, was one of several riders to crash in Friday practice at Phillip Island, with six-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez (Honda) falling twice at the first-gear turn 10, the slowest corner on the 12-turn layout.
Marquez, with five races remaining in his 11-year tenure at Honda before moving to Ducati next season, qualified seventh in the 21-bike field after having never starting lower than third in his eight previous races in Australia.
The 27-lap Australian Grand Prix, brought forward 24 hours in advance of adverse weather expected to hit the coastal circuit on Sunday, takes place at 3.10pm on Saturday.
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