Marc Marquez claimed his third MotoGP pole position in qualifying for Sunday’s German Grand Prix after beating the Yamahas of Cal Crutchlow and Valentino Rossi.

Home rider Stefan Bradl briefly topped the times after the first bout of efforts but was swiftly bumped down to fourth as the leaders upped the ante. Marquez’s second flier yielded a 1m21.849s to put him provisional pole, but he was pushed down by the factory Yamaha of Rossi and then Cal Crutchlow’s satellite Tech 3 bike.

When they emerged from the pits for their final runs, though, Marquez was not to be denied. On his eighth effort, he improved to a 1m21.311, just two-tenths shy of Casey Stoner’s outright lap record, set on qualifying tires in 2008, and out of the reach of the chasing Yamahas. Rossi briefly jumped Crutchlow as he improved to a 1m21.493s but the Briton edged out the Assen winner by less than five-hundredths of a second as he posted a 1m21.434s.

Bradl had an off at Turn 3 at mid-distance but was quickly back on his LCR Honda and though he was able to improve his time, he could not match the pace of the lead trio and ended up fourth. That put him only fractionally ahead of the Aspar Aprilia of Aleix Espargaro, the CRT rider excelling once again to earn a career-best starting position of fifth.

Espargaro’s time of 1m21.887s was well clear of Nicky Hayden’s factory Ducati in sixth, while Danilo Petrucci and Claudio Corti made it three CRT bikes in Q2, that duo completing the top 10.

Dani Pedrosa will line up 12th, should he be declared fit to race. The championship leader was revealed to have a very small crack in his collarbone after his hefty practice shunt, though it was a combination of concussion and shoulder injury which forced him to miss the session.

Pramac Ducati’s Andrea Iannone also missed Q1 following a dislocated right shoulder sustained in a crash in fourth practice, and was classified 23rd.

Pos Rider              Team/Bike                Time       Gap
 1. Marc Marquez       Honda                    1m21.311s
 2. Cal Crutchlow      Tech 3 Yamaha            1m21.434s  +0.123s
 3. Valentino Rossi    Yamaha                   1m21.493s  +0.182s
 4. Stefan Bradl       LCR Honda                1m21.862s  +0.551s
 5. Aleix Espargaro    Aspar Aprilia            1m21.887s  +0.576s
 6. Nicky Hayden       Ducati                   1m22.157s  +0.846s
 7. Bradley Smith      Tech 3 Yamaha            1m22.297s  +0.986s
 8. Alvaro Bautista    Gresini Honda            1m22.484s  +1.173s
 9. Andrea Dovizioso   Ducati                   1m22.561s  +1.250s
10. Claudio Corti      Forward FTR-Kawasaki     1m23.059s  +1.748s
11. Danilo Petrucci    Ioda-Suter-BMW           1m23.361s  +2.050s
12. Dani Pedrosa       Honda                    -
13. Randy de Puniet    Aspar Aprilia            1m23.152s  +1.841s
14. Hector Barbera     Avintia FTR-Kawasaki     1m23.333s  +2.022s
15. Michele Pirro      Pramac Ducati            1m23.349s  +2.038s
16. Michael Laverty    PBM-Aprilia              1m23.549s  +2.238s
17. Yonny Hernandez    PBM Aprilia              1m23.565s  +2.254s
18. Colin Edwards      Forward FTR-Kawasaki     1m23.631s  +2.320s
19. Karel Abraham      Cardion Aprilia          1m23.752s  +2.441s
20. Hiroshi Aoyama     Avintia FTR-Kawasaki     1m23.820s  +2.509s
21. Lukas Pesek        Ioda-Suter-BMW           1m24.395s  +3.084s
22. Bryan Staring      Gresini FTR-Honda        1m27.273s  +5.962s
23. Andrea Iannone     Pramac Ducati            -