Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Alex Marquez will start from fourth on the grid at Assen with Joan Mir qualifying in tenth position.

A warm, sunny and fast qualifying session has set the scene for a closely contested Dutch TT with the top ten riders separated by just 0.287s.

Marquez has put himself in contention for his for first win of the season with a fast qualifying time of 1’37.717s that saw him just 0.109s off pole position.

It was an impressive improvement of 0.6s after being ninth overall after the FP3 session although Marquez’s qualifying ended with a crash when he lost the front-end at turn seven.

For Mir it was the reverse with the Spanish rookie slipping from third after FP3 to tenth place on the grid despite a 0.3s faster lap time. The close lap times and the fast, sweeping Assen layout are set to produce a classic contest with a forecast of continuing warm and dry conditions.

The warm-up session for Moto2 will be at 9:10am with the 24 lap race timed to to start at 12:20pm.

Alex Marquez: 4th, 1’37.717
“We had made a step forward during the qualifying session, I felt good and had a good pace. I’ll be heading the second row of the grid and that’s quite important for tomorrow’s race, it was also our goal for today. We have been struggling a lot more this weekend than others. It will be very important to finish the race, but I can’t ensure that right now. I’ll go out and see how I feel, but I think I have a good enough pace to step on the podium or maybe for a top five finish, but I think that my podium expectations are real.”

Joan Mir: 10th, 1’37.895
“Even though I am starting tenth on the grid I have a strong pace and a really good feeling with the bike so I am quite happy about this. I struggled to make a single fast lap in qualifying but this is not one of my best skills and the race pace is more important. I’m ready for a good race.”