After two promising days, Pol Espargaro and Marc Marquez were disappointed after failing to deliver in qualifying. Marquez left his second fall of the event.
On Saturday at Assen, Pol Espargaro continued his good form from Friday and kept his RC213V consistently in the top ten while showing impressive pace during the morning session. He improved to 1’33.170 before the late attack began and Espargaro found another half-second to finish FP3 in third place with 1’32.641. Espargaro put together a competitive Free Practice 4 and went into Q2, ready for the challenge and started the session well with a competitive first run. The # 44 would not be able to take a dramatic step forward in terms of lap time, as he had to regret choosing the wrong front tires. His 1’32.830 brought him 11th place on the grid.
Although he was sore and bruised from his high side in Free Practice 2, Marc Marquez was back on track for Free Practice 3 and immediately picked up where he had left off. Within a few laps, Marquez had improved his best time on Friday as he was aiming for a place in the second quarter. Less than 0.2 seconds lay between Marquez and a top ten position in the session, the eight-time world champion went into Q1 in the afternoon. Unfortunately, a fall in the final minutes of Q1 ended Marquez’s chances of advancing into Q2 and had to start the Dutch TT from 20th on the grid.
The race on Sunday will be held over 26 laps around the TT Circuit Assen, the lights for the race will go out at 2:00 p.m. local time. After uncertain forecasts, the Dutch TT 2021 now looks dry. Both Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro want to score a point in the race before the mid-season summer break.