Marquez takes 3rd consecutive pole at Indianapolis GP

INDIANAPOLIS: Marc Marquez is living out his own American dream.
One more successful chapter Sunday could soon have him back on top of the world.
The 22-year-old MotoGP star completed Indianapolis’ 2.591-mile, 14-turn road course in 1 minute, 31.884 seconds to claim a third straight pole on his adopted home track.
Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa will start second after going 1:32.055, and Movistar Honda rider Jorge Lornezo rounded out the all-Spanish front row with a 1:32.186.
But the focus was on Marquez. He has six won straight races and taken six of the last seven poles on American soil.
Next up: Breaking a modern-era track record at the historic Brickyard by winning a fifth consecutive race. He won last two MotoGP races here as well as Moto2 races in 2011 and 2012.
“One thing, one important thing is that I have a lot of left corners (in Indy) and from what I understand this is good,” the two-time defending world champ said Friday. “It looks like USA is a good sequence for me.”
Even when things don’t go right.
Lorenzo, the 2009 race winner and a two-time Indy runner-up, posted the fastest laps in Friday’s morning and afternoon practice sessions.
When the clouds arrived Saturday, things changed.
Marquez quickly took the top spot in the morning practice, kept it in the afternoon and held it through most of the 15-minute qualifying session, too. After Marquez produced his pole-winning speed midway through qualifying, everyone else was relegated to futilely chasing him.
Sunday’s race won’t just be about making history, though.
Another win would send Marquez past Andrea Iannone, an Italian whose four-point lead appears to be in peril after he qualified seventh.
“I’m not so happy,” said Iannone, who is third in the standings. “I tried my best every time. I hope tomorrow to win the race and everything is better.”
Others are trying to follow a similar script.
Lorenzo barely found enough speed at the end of qualifying to sneak past Britain’s Cal Crutchlow (1:32.208) to make the front row. There’s a 42-point gap between Marquez and Lorenzo, who is second.
Italy’s Valentino Rossi has struggled all weekend at Indy. Unless that changes, Marquez is likely to cut the point leader’s 65-point lead, too.
With eight races left, that means it’s anybody’s game.
And Marquez goes into Sunday as the clear favorite with his team winning the last five races at Indy and pole-winners winning the last four.
It looks the only good news for Rossi, Lorenzo and everyone else is that this will be the last US stop of the season.
But that may not be enough to stop the hard-charging Marquez, who was second and first in his last two races and is hoping another win will help him complete a uniquely American comeback.