Miller claims a career-best 16th on the grid.
Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez continued his dominance of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to make it three pole positions in a row at the legendary US circuit.
The reigning MotoGP World Champion has won the last two races at the circuit from pole position, and signs are ominous that he might do the same this weekend after he was the only rider to break the 1m32s barrier during Q2.
The day got even better for Repsol Honda as Dani Pedrosa (+0.171s) managed to finish second fastest and secure a 1-2 on the grid for the factory team.
Marquez set a 1m31.884s on his just his second flying lap during the session to claim his fifth pole of the season in near perfect conditions at the ‘Brickyard’ as the sun broke through the clouds and the track temperature reached 40 degrees.
Try as they might, no one else had an answer to the Spaniard’s pace in a frantic end to the session, and it was only Pedrosa who managed to get within three-tenths of the reigning MotoGP World Champion.
Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo (+0.302s) will start from the back of the front row despite using a two-stop strategy as he looks to close the 13-point gap at the top of the standings to his teammate Valentino Rossi.
Cal Crutchlow (+0.324s) was the leading satellite rider and will start from the head of the second row in fourth on the CWM LCR Honda.
The big surprise of the session was the pace of Octo Pramac Racing’s Danilo Petrucci (+0.359s), who finished fastest in Q1 and managed to carry that pace into Q2 to start from fifth on the grid as the fastest Ducati in his best ever MotoGP qualifying performance.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Bradley Smith (+0.385s), who had been second fastest overall in practice, will start the race from sixth ahead of the Factory GP15 of Andrea Iannone in seventh.
Current championship leader Valentino Rossi was third on the timesheets with seven minutes to go, but was knocked down to eighth by the end of the session and will have to work hard to try and preserve his advantage in the championship standings on Sunday.
Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Maverick Viñales completes the third row in ninth while Andrea Dovizioso on the second GP15 will start from tenth on the grid, with the Italian having to fight his way through Q2 after finishing 11th on the combined timesheets after practice.
Pol Espargaro (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) and his brother Aleix (Team Suzuki Ecstar) make up the rest of the fourth row in 11th and 12th respectively, with less than a second separating the top 12 riders.
To give you an indication how close it was, Scott Redding (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) only just missed out on making it through to Q2 by 0.079s and will start from 13th.
Avintia Racing’s Hector Barbera was the leading Open class rider in 14th, with Australian Jack Miller (CWM LCR Honda) in 16th.
Stefan Bradl (17th) out-qualified his teammate Alvaro Bautista (18th) on his debut for Aprilia Racing Team Gresini while the Aspar MotoGP Team duo of Eugene Laverty and Nicky Hayden will start from 19th and 20th on the grid respectively.
Paginas Amarillas HP40’s rookie Alex Rins claimed his second pole position of the season at the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix in an incredibly tight Moto2 Qualifying that saw less than a second separate the top 18 riders.
Rins set the fastest ever lap time by a Moto2 bike at the circuit, a 1m36.549s and finish 0.137s ahead of Tito Rabat on the Estrella Galicia 0,0 Kalex and Italtrans Racing Team’s Mika Kallio.
Leopard Racing’s runaway Moto3 World Championship leader Danny Kent took his fourth pole position of the 2015 season after recording the fastest-ever lap by a Moto3 bike at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The British rider, like many others, started the session in race trim to work on his setup for Sunday, before switching onto some fresh rubber to set a 1m40.703a with 18 minutes to go.
Despite a frantic last few seconds that almost saw Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Miguel Oliveira takeover top spot, Kent held on to take pole position by 0.088s from the Portuguese rider and Drive M7 SIC’s Zulfahmi Khairuddin.