Here we take a look at the qualifying results from five series feature in yesterday's Friday Five.
Valentino on Valencia Pole
For the first time since the 2010 French Grand Prix, Valentino Rossi will start on pole position. The Yamaha rider set the fastest lap at 1:30.843 seconds. It is his third career pole at Valencia and first since 2006. He finished thirteenth in that race, handing the world championship to Nicky Hayden who came home in third. Rossi won the 2003 Valencian Community Grand Prix from pole position. Andrea Iannone will start second after being 0.132 seconds slower than Rossi. Iannone starts second for the third time in 2014. His other starts from middle of row one came at Mugello and Misano. Dani Pedrosa rounds out row one. Pedrosa has finished every race he has started at Valencia in the points and has won six of elevens starts at Circuit Ricardo Tormo.
Jorge Lorenzo will start fourth after being 0.206 seconds off his teammate. Marc Márquez will start fifth, his worst start of the season. Márquez is looking to win a record-setting thirteenth victory in the 2014 season. Pol Espargaró starts sixth after beating his Tech3 Yamaha teammate Bradley Smith by 0.017 seconds. The Ducati teammates of Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso round out row three. Stefan Bradl rounds out the top ten as he was 0.6 seconds back of Rossi. Aleix Espargaró will start eleventh with the Ducati wild card entry of Michele Pirro rounding out the fourth row.
The Gresini teammates Álvaro Bautista and Scott Redding will start thirteenth and fourteenth with Yonny Hernández on the outside of row five. Nicky Hayden qualified sixteenth with Héctor Barberá between him and his Aspar teammate Hiroshi Aoyama. Alex de Angelis was nineteenth with the Suzuki of Randy de Puniet rounding out the top twenty.
The final five positions will be occupied by Danilo Petrucci, Michael Laverty, Karel Abraham, Broc Parkes and Mike Di Meglio.
Fox Sports 1 will show tomorrow's MotoGP season finale live at 7:30 a.m. ET.
First Career Pole-Sitter in Moto3
Italian Niccolò Antonelli won his first career pole position for the 2014 Moto3 season finale. His fastest lap was a 1:39.183 seconds. He beat championship contender Jack Miller by 0.068 seconds as the Australian Miller is eleven points back of Álex Márquez, who will start third. Márquez was 0.305 seconds back of Miller.
Isaac Viñales and Álex Rins rounds out the top five. Karel Hanika starts on the outside of row two. Nicolas Ajo qualified seventh with SaxoPrint teammates John McPhee and Efrén Vázquez rounding out row three. Juanfran Guevara rounds out the top ten as Danny Kent and Jakub Kornfeil join him on row four. Andrea Mingo, Romano Fenati and Alexis Masbou qualified for row five with Brad Binder, Miguel Oliveira and Jorge Navarro qualified for row six. The top eighteen riders were covered by 0.914 seconds.
André Lotterer and Kazuki Nakajima Split Super Formula Poles
André Lotterer and Kazuki Nakajima split pole positions for the Super Formula season finale doubleheader. Lotterer won pole position for race one with Nakajima starting on his outside. Both drivers set the same time, a 1:38.085 in qualifying but Lotterer gets the pole based on setting the time first. Yuji Kunimoto qualified third for race one, 0.146 seconds off the Petronas Team TOM's pairing. João Paulo de Oliveira is second in the championship and will roll off from the outside of row two in race one. Loïc Duval qualified fifth with Naoki Yamamoto being the top Honda in sixth
Hiroaki Ishiura and Ryo Hirakawa qualified on row four with Koudai Tsukakoshi and James Rossiter rounding out the top ten. Loiterer and Rossitter were separated by 0.886 seconds.
Nakajima won pole for race two with a time of 1:37.507 seconds with Duval in second, 0.164 seconds back. Lotterer was 0.210 seconds back of his teammate in third with Kunimoto on the outside of row two. Ishiura rounded out the top five with de Oliveira in sixth, 0.493 seconds back of the championship leader Nakajima. Hirakawa and Rossiter rounded out the top eight with Tsukakoshi the top Honda in ninth and Narain Karthikeyan rounding out the top ten.
Nico Rosberg wins Tenth Pole of Formula One Season
The Mercedes and Williams went at each other as the four cars all broke the track record but with the factory outlet having the upper hand. Nico Rosberg won his tenth pole of the 2014 season with a lap of 1:10.023 seconds. The German will end 2014 with the most pole positions. He beat his teammate and championship rival Lewis Hamilton by 0.033 seconds.
The Williams teammates Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas gave it their all but could not surpass the factory Mercedes. Massa will start third after running a 1:20.247 and Bottas will join him on row two after ending 0.058 seconds back of the Brazilian.
Jenson Button ended up fifth but over nine-tenths of a second back of Rosberg as Mercedes engines took the top five spots on the grid. Sebastian Vettel ended up sixth, 0.008 seconds back of Button. Kevin Magnussen qualified eighth, 0.008 seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso. Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Räikkönen rounded out the top ten. The top ten were covered by 1.076 seconds.
Esteban Gutiérrez missed out on Q3 and will start eleventh with his former Sauber teammate Nico Hülkenberg joining him on row six. Adrian Sutil ended up thirteenth with Daniil Kvyat in fourteenth however the Russian will have to serve the remain of a grid spot penalty for a power unit change and will drop to the rear of the field.
Romain Grosjean failed to make it out of Q1 again and was fifteenth with his fellow Frenchmen Jean-Éric Vergne in sixteenth. Sergio Pérez was seventeenth but he will drop to the rear after being handed a seven spot grid penalty for causing an accident last week at Austin with Sutil on lap one. Pastor Maldonado was the slowest qualifier.
CNBC will have live coverage of tomorrow's Brazilian Grand Prix starting at 10:30 a.m. ET. NBC will show a replay of the race at 1:00 p.m. ET with NBCSN showing it a third time at 4:00 p.m. ET.
Denny Hamlin Wins Phoenix Pole
Co-points leader Denny Hamlin won his third pole of the 2014 season and first since Pocono in June. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver ran a 25.332-second lap in the final round of qualifying. Brad Keselowski will start second after missing pole by 0.006 seconds. Kevin Harvick starts third making it each manufacture getting a representative in the top three. He will be joined by co-points leader Joey Logano on row two. Matt Kenneth rounded out the top five with Kyle Busch making it three Gibbs Toyotas in the top six. Jeff Gordon qualified seventh with Kyle Larson in eighth. Brian Vickers and Kurt Busch rounded out the top ten with Paul Menard and Casey Mears rounding out the drivers who made it to round one.
Carl Edwards qualified thirteenth with Martin Truex, Jr. joining him on row seven. Row eight features Hendrick teammates and the last two winners in the Cup series, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Clint Bowyer, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Jamie McMurray and Ryan Newman round out the top twenty.
ESPN's coverage for the penultimate round of the NASCAR season begins at 3:00 p.m. ET.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
