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General

MotoGP Le Mans qualifying

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Information
Q2 result:

1 Vinales
2 Rossi
3 Zarco
4 Crutchlow
5 Marquez
6 Dovizioso
7 Redding
8 P Espargaro
9 Abraham
10 Smith
11 Miller
12 Baz

The rest:

13 Pedrosa
14 Bautista
15 Folger
16 Lorenzo
17 Iannone
18 A Espargaro
19 Petrucci
20 Barbera
21 Lowes
22 Rabat
23 Guintoli
Redding's session of near-misses and a shunt ends with a lap disqualified for a track limits infringement too. He's still seventh, though.
Marquez can't improve, he stays a disappointing fifth.
Zarco takes third off Crutchlow. Marquez is still on a lap too.
Zarco is back onto the front row at home!
Checkered flag
Chequered flag is out, last significant improvement could come from Zarco and Marquez, who are fourth and fifth right now.
Crutchlow grabs third back from Zarco.
Stopwatch
Vinales improves to a 1m31.994s in provisional pole. Rossi improves too but is 0.106s off.
Marquez is down to fifth and improving but it's not a stunner.
Zarco improves to take third off Crutchlow. It's a Yamaha 1-2-3 right now.
Zarco is improving again, but Vinales is banging in an absolutely mighty lap that will surely take him out of everyone's reach.
Crash
Redding has gone down too.
Crash
Miller crashes - but that's far gentler than his FP4-mega-shunt.
Rossi lost ground in traffic there but still goes second, just 0.077s off team-mate Vinales.
Zarco closes on Crutchlow but stays third, missing second by 0.027s.
Stopwatch
Vinales leaps to the top with a 1m32.146s, 0.268s clear of Crutchlow.
Zarco, Rossi, Redding, Espargaro, Baz and Abraham are all on mega laps too, though.
Just under three minutes to go, Vinales now on an extremely fast lap.
Stopwatch
That lap puts Zarco second behind Crutchlow.
Zarco let the others get on with it while he waiting in the pits and now he bangs in fifth with his banker lap before starting a flat-out run that's looking good for provisional pole.
Information
Order so far: 1 Crutchlow, 2 Rossi, 3 Marquez, 4 Dovizioso, 5 Redding, 6 Vinales, 7 P Espargaro, 8 Smith, 9 Miller, 10 Baz, 11 Abraham, 12 Zarco (no time yet)
Redding has just scooted over the run-off passing Abraham, and now has a near-miss with a slow-moving Rossi that prompts an angry gesticulation in the Italian legend's direction.
Rossi now gets between Crutchlow and Marquez into second.
Crutchlow improves his provisional pole time, while Marquez carried on without pitting after that crash and puts in a solid banker lap for second.
Stopwatch
Now Crutchlow grabs provisional pole with a 1m32.6s lap.
A replay shows Marquez's crash was a relatively gentle front-end fold. He's on his way back to the pits and is currently sixth.
Rossi's first lap puts him fifth.
Stopwatch
Meanwhile Vinales has grabbed provisional pole by 0.945s over Espargaro, with the battered Miller now third between the KTMs.
Marquez went down at Turn 3. He's remounted and heading to the pits.
Crash
Marquez crashes!
Stopwatch
Then Pol Espargaro beats Smith and for a few seconds we have a KTM one-two.
Stopwatch
Smith puts in the first flier with a 1m34.701s - and that's 0.7s better than Marquez's first go!
Reasonable flurry of riders heading straight out in case the weather turns again.
Green flag
Q2 is go.
Coming up in Q2: Dovizioso, Zarco, Abraham, Vinales, Crutchlow, Smith, Miller, Pol Espargaro, Redding, Rossi, Baz and Marquez.
So that's 16th on the grid for Lorenzo, the same as his position at Argentina last month. Only other times he's started lower were in 2008, with 17th at Donington and Brno.
That means Pedrosa will start 13th, ahead of Bautista, Folger, Lorenzo, Iannone, Aleix Espargaro, Petrucci, Barbera, Lowes, Rabat and Guintoli.
So Dovizioso and Zarco are going through to Q2, which starts shortly.

By: Mitchell Adam

Published: