Francesco Bagnaia stormed to a third straight pole at the Circuit of the Americas as title rival Fabio Quartararo kept the Italian in sight as he bagged second.
With Jack Miller having dominated Saturday running by topping both the FP3 and FP4 sessions prior to qualifying, the Aussie was expected to streak to a first pole of 2021, though initially it looked to be Marc Marquez who would be his stiffest opponent.
The Honda man led the way following the opening runs with a 2:03.209s tour ahead of Pramac rookie Jorge Martin, while Miller initially struggled to find speed as he sat only eighth after his first gambit.
The field were soon back out again for the final pole runs owing to the tall lap-times of the 5.5 kilometre venue, though it looked to be Bagnaia who had managed to unlock the breathtaking speed of the Desmosedici his team-mate had displayed in the morning sessions.
The two-time MotoGP race winner was on fire as he posted a sweep of fastest split times on his final attempt, Bagnaia firing in a 2:02.781s as he blew his rivals firmly out of the water.
Quartararo looked to be able to challenge him in the opening sector, though the pure power of Bagnaia’s Ducati allowed him to pull clear over the remainder of the lap-the Frenchman’s best effort leaving him a strong second just behind his closest championship challenger as Bagnaia garbbed a third straight pole.
Marquez saw his chances of extending his COTA pole stretch to eight ended after failing to find an improvement on his final effort, thus leaving him third just ahead of Martin, while Takaaki Nakagami showed well to complete the top five for LCR.
Johann Zarco will start the Grand Prix of the Americas from sixth ahead of the Suzuki pair, the Q1 graduating Joan Mir just missing out to Alex Rins for seventh.
Luca Marini led the way in the opening segment of qualifying to eventually secure a solid ninth ahead of the disappointing Miller, who lapped 0.939s slower than Bagnaia after looking the favourite for pole just 15 minutes prior.
KTM’s Brad Binder and Pol Espargaro rounded out the 12 man pole shootout contingent.
Franco Morbidelli’s start to life as a factory Yamaha racer continued to challenge as he saw himself as the fastest man eliminated from Q1, gifting him a 13th position start ahead of the again impressive Petronas SERT Yamaha of Andrea Dovizioso, who took 14th despite running into significant traffic on his fastest attempt.
Not so competitive was team-mate Valentino Rossi, who will start his final American MotoGP event a lowly 20th ahead of only Tech 3’s Danilo Petrucci after crashing on his last lap.
Alex Marquez failed to escape Q1 en-route to 14th on the other LCR Honda ahead of San Marino star Enea Bastinaini, while Miguel Oliveira and Aleix Espargaro saw their tricky weekends continue as they could muster up only 18th and 19th for Sunday’s contest, the latter having crashed twice within less than half-an-hour in FP4 and Q1 respectively.
| # | Rider | Team | Time | Gap / Int |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Francesco BAGNAIA | Ducati Lenovo Team | 2’02.781 | |
| 2 | Fabio QUARTARARO | Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP | 2’03.129 | 0.348 / 0.348 |
| 3 | Marc MARQUEZ | Repsol Honda Team | 2’03.209 | 0.428 / 0.080 |
| 4 | Jorge MARTIN | Pramac Racing | 2’03.278 | 0.497 / 0.069 |
| 5 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | LCR Honda IDEMITSU | 2’03.292 | 0.511 / 0.014 |
| 6 | Johann ZARCO | Pramac Racing | 2’03.379 | 0.598 / 0.087 |
| 7 | Alex RINS | Team SUZUKI ECSTAR | 2’03.453 | 0.672 / 0.074 |
| 8 | Joan MIR | Team SUZUKI ECSTAR | 2’03.528 | 0.747 / 0.075 |
| 9 | Luca MARINI | SKY VR46 Avintia | 2’03.546 | 0.765 / 0.018 |
| 10 | Jack MILLER | Ducati Lenovo Team | 2’03.720 | 0.939 / 0.174 |
| 11 | Brad BINDER | Red Bull KTM Factory Racing | 2’03.781 | 1.000 / 0.061 |
| 12 | Pol ESPARGARO | Repsol Honda Team | 2’03.875 | 1.094 / 0.094 |
