Aleix Espargaró Slides Into Assen Pole Position

With the help of steady rainfall in the middle of Q2, Aleix Espargaró earned his first career MotoGP pole position for tomorrow's Dutch TT. It is the first pole position for an "open" class bike and the first for Forward Yamaha. The Spaniard laid his down his fastest lap, a 1:38.789, before rain soaked the track with about eight minutes remaining in the session. For the second consecutive race Marc Márquez will not start from pole position and will roll off in second position. Márquez is looking for his eighth consecutive victory. His Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa made it an all-Catalan front row in third position.

Andrea Iannone qualified fourth with Cal Crutchlow in fifth position, just over two seconds back of Espargaró. Crutchlow had to advance from Q1 to make the top twelve shootout. Fellow British rider Bradley Smith rounds out row two on his Tech3 Yamaha.

Andrea Dovizioso will start seventh with Stefan Brandl and Jorge Lorenzo joining him on row three. Álvaro Bautista, Pol Espargaró and Valentino Rossi round out the top twelve. Rossi won the 2007 Dutch TT from eleventh on the grid. Six of the last ten Dutch TT winners have come from pole position while seven of the last ten have come from the front row.

Karel Abraham will start thirteenth, his best start since the 2012 season finale at Valencia. Hiroshi Aoyama will start fourteenth with Yonny Hernández rounds out row five. Scott Redding will start sixteenth after come 0.003 seconds short of making row five. Danilo Petrucci will start seventeenth, his best starting position of the season. Colin Edwards starts eighteenth for his final Dutch TT.

Broc Parkes starts on the inside of row seven for the second consecutive race. Héctor Barberá and Michael Laverty join the Australian on the penultimate row. Nicky Hayden starts twenty-second, his worst career starting position at Assen. Mike Di Meglio rounds out the grid in twenty-third.

Coverage for tomorrow's Dutch TT begins at 7:00 a.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.