Marc Marquez captured his third consecutive Indianapolis Grand Prix pole on Saturday, beating teammate Dani Pedrosa and title rival Jorge Lorenzo.
The reigning MotoGP World Champion has won the last two races at the circuit from pole position, and signs are ominous that he might do the same this weekend after he was the only rider to break the 1:32 bracket during qualifying.
Marquez set a 1:31.884 on his just his second flying lap to capture his fifth pole of the season, edging Pedrosa by nearly two-tenths of a second for a Honda 1-2.
Movistar Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo will join the Honda duo on the front row as he looks to close the 13-point gap at the top of the standings to teammate Valentino Rossi, who qualified a dismal eigth.
The big surprise of the session was the pace of Octo Pramac Racing's Danilo Petrucci, who finished fastest in Q1 and managed to carry that pace into Q2 to start from fifth on the grid. It is the best MotoGP qualifying performance of Petrucci's career. Monster Yamaha Tech 3's Bradley Smith will start the race from sixth ahead of the Factory GP15 of Andrea Iannone.
Avintia Racing's Hector Barbera was the leading Open class rider in 14th. Stefan Bradl was 17th and out-qualified teammate Alvaro Bautista on his debut for Aprilia Racing Team Gresini.
American hero Nicky Hayden qualified 20th for his home race.
FOX Sports 1 will carry three hours of live MotoGP coverage on Sunday, beginning with the Moto3 race at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT. The Moto2 race will begin thereafter followed immediately by the MotoGP Indianapolis Grand Prix.
Check out the full MotoGP qualifying results here.
