Ducati’s Marc Marquez smashed the Balaton Park Circuit lap record twice yesterday to claim pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix as his teammate Francesco Bagnaia endured his worst qualifying session of the season.
Marquez, who leads the championship, would be joined on the front row by Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi and VR46 Racing’s Fabio Di Giannantonio, both of whom had to battle through the Q1 session to reach the pole shootout.
“It’s a surprise [to see them on the front row] and at the same time, no, because we cannot forget that we’re in a new circuit,” Marquez said.
Photo: AFP
“Every time you put new tires, you find new limits. So they were coming Q1 and the fact that they already did two timed attacks, they had another reference,” he said. “So they were super fast, but we did our job. So happy to start on the front row and especially in pole position.”
The session provided plenty of drama, with KTM’s Pedro Acosta — fastest in Friday practice — crashing early and destroying his bike.
Acosta sprinted to the barrier and commandeered one of the bikes used to ferry riders back to the paddock. Although he was able to put in one more lap, he could only manage seventh fastest with his reserve bike.
Marquez responded to his rivals closing in on his initial lap record by going out again and setting another benchmark time of 1 minute, 36.518 seconds for his eighth pole of the season.
His brother Alex, second in the championship and 142 points behind, qualified 11th.
However, the Gresini Racing rider would start 14th after receiving a three-place grid penalty for riding slowly on the racing line during practice and disrupting another rider.
The biggest shock of the afternoon came from Bagnaia, who sits third in the championship, but has struggled in recent rounds.
The twice-champion could only manage 15th fastest, missing out on Q2 for the first time this season, and the Italian was seen shaking his head after his disappointing lap time.
“It’s obvious that we are not happy about this result,” Ducati manager Davide Tardozzi said.
“It will be a very, very difficult race — on the psychological side and because it’s very hard to overtake in these race tracks when starting from 15th position. It is very, very difficult.”
Kylian Mbappe struck from the penalty spot as Real Madrid beat a dogged CA Osasuna 1-0 on Tuesday to make a winning start in Spanish La Liga under new coach Xabi Alonso. The France striker, last season’s European Golden Shoe winner, scored early in the second half, after he was fouled in the area by Osasuna defender Juan Cruz. It was enough to seal the points in Alonso’s first game in charge at the Santiago Bernabeu, with Madrid now unbeaten in their opening fixture of a league campaign since 2008. “You can see that Kylian wants to do even more
Spanish champions Barcelona opened their Spanish La Liga campaign on Saturday with an island cruise as they played almost an hour against nine men on their way to a 3-0 victory in RCD Mallorca. Barcelona’s second-half stroll did not please coach Hansi Flick. “They’re three important points, but I didn’t like the match,” he told broadcaster Movistar. “After going two goals up and following Mallorca’s two red cards, I think the team only gave 50 percent, and I didn’t like that,” he said. “Playing at 50 or 60 per cent is not possible against nine players.” Two of Barcelona’s Ballon
Manchester City signaled their intent to take back the English Premier League title as Erling Haaland struck twice in a 4-0 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday to begin their campaign. After four consecutive titles, City finished a distant third last season as Pep Guardiola’s men failed to win any trophy for the first time in eight years. New signings Tijjani Reijnders, who was the star of the show at Molineux, and Rayan Cherki were also on target to give Guardiola hope his side would be back in the title race this season. “We knew he is a top signing
Kevin de Bruyne is to lead SSC Napoli’s Serie A title defense today when he makes his full debut at promoted US Sassuolo, but the champions head into the new season rocked by a long-term injury to star striker Romelu Lukaku. De Bruyne was, alongside aging icon Luka Modric, the big new name to arrive in Italy this summer and fans were hoping his linkup with Belgium teammate Lukaku would push Napoli to success both at home and in their return to the UEFA Champions League. The 34-year-old has suffered from hamstring injuries which caused him to miss significant chunks of the
RSS