Márquez storms to Sachsenring pole

World Champion Marc Márquez continued his domination of the German Grand Prix weekend by cruising to pole position at the Sachsenring.

Márquez bested his own lap record from 2014 to claim provisional pole, though his time was narrowly beaten by team-mate Dani Pedrosa.

Márquez duly went three-tenths of a second faster to finish with a time of 1:20.336, ahead of Pedrosa and Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo, as he bids to return to the top step of the podium for the first time since April's race in Austin.

Ducati's Andrea Iannone was fourth, with Yonny Hernández and championship leader Valentino Rossi completing the second row of the grid.

Aleix Espargaró beat brother Pol Espargaró to seventh position, with Bradley Smith recovering from a moment at Turn 12 to collect ninth.

Cal Crutchlow was 10th fastest, with Andrea Dovizioso and Maverick Viñales completing the top 12.

Héctor Barberá was the quickest of the riders unable to progress through to Q2 and will start from 13th on the grid, ahead of Britain's Scott Redding.

Danilo Petrucci was 15th on the Pramac Ducati, with Álvaro Bautista 16th for Aprilia.

Alex de Angelis will start 17th, ahead of Jack Miller, Nicky Hayden, Loris Baz and Mike di Meglio.

Hiroshi Aoyama, who replaced Dani Pedrosa for three races earlier this year, will start from 22nd as he stands-in for the injured Karel Abraham.

Eugene Laverty pipped older brother Michael to 23rd position, with the latter making a MotoGP comeback with Aprilia in place of Marco Melandri.

Claudio Corti, filling in for Stefan Bradl, will start from the back of the grid.