Silverstone MotoGP: Marc Marquez denies Jorge Lorenzo pole

Cal Crutchlow meanwhile bounced back from his brace of Saturday morning crashes to secure a front-row start for his home race, ahead of Dani Pedrosa, Stefan Bradl and Valentino Rossi.

Yamaha rider Lorenzo sparked off an unbelievable fight with Marquez when he fired in a 2m01.497s on his first lap of the shootout, decimating Casey Stoner's 2011 lap record.

Marquez though responded instantly and lowered the benchmark further, before Lorenzo reclaimed the initiative with a 2m01.217s on the final lap of his first run.

After pitting for fresh rubber the duo's spectacular head-to-head resumed, with Lorenzo instantly breaking into the 2m00s bracket.

Still Marquez had an answer, and his own first flyer - complete with several lurid moments - was a 2m00.691s, some 0.128 seconds faster than Lorenzo, and nearly 1.5s than the previous lap record.

Honda's Spaniard, chasing a fifth straight win at Silverstone, will therefore start from pole for the fifth time this year.

CRUTCHLOW MAKES IT ONTO FRONT ROW AT HOME

Crutchlow had no answer to the pace of the front two, but booked third for Tech 3 courtesy of a late 2m01.425s.

LCR's Bradl meanwhile edged out factory counterpart Pedrosa to fourth, with Rossi a further four tenths of a second down the road in sixth.

He was almost shunted down to seventh by Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso, but the Italian missed out on a second row start by just 0.014s.

Instead he shared the third row with Gresini's Alvaro Bautista and team-mate Nicky Hayden.

Tech 3's Bradley Smith will start from 10th, and Colin Edwards from 11th, after Aleix Espargaro was unable to compete in Q2 following a nasty highside in practice four that resulted in a compound fracture of his little finger.

Edwards was only just able to squeeze through into Q2, withstanding a late charge from Espargaro's Aspar stable-mate Randy de Puniet, who missed out by just 0.006s.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike             Time       Gap
 1.  Marc Marquez      Honda                 2m00.691s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                2m00.819s  +0.128s
 3.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha         2m01.425s  +0.734s
 4.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda             2m01.558s  +0.867s
 5.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 2m01.624s  +0.933s
 6.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                2m02.109s  +1.418s
 7.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                2m02.123s  +1.432s
 8.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda         2m02.252s  +1.561s
 9.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                2m02.289s  +1.598s
10.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha         2m02.409s  +1.718s
11.  Colin Edwards     Forward FTR-Kawasaki  2m04.032s  +3.341s
12.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia
13.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia         2m04.114s  Q1
14.  Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m04.236s  Q1
15.  Michele Pirro     Pramac Ducati         2m04.680s  Q1
16.  Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati         2m04.692s  Q1
17.  Yonny Hernandez   PBM Aprilia           2m04.749s  Q1
18.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Suter-BMW        2m04.798s  Q1
19.  Michael Laverty   PBM-Aprilia           2m04.936s  Q1
20.  Claudio Corti     Forward FTR-Kawasaki  2m05.356s  Q1
21.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m05.622s  Q1
22.  Lukas Pesek       Ioda-Suter-BMW        2m07.261s  Q1
23.  Bryan Staring     Gresini FTR-Honda     2m07.300s  Q1