Enea Bastianini streaked to a maiden MotoGP pole position at the Red Bull Ring after snatching away the advantage from Francesco Bagnaia at the death by just 0.024s.
The Gresini Ducati rider looked to be building nicely throughout the Austrian Grand Prix weekend having managed the sixth best time in FP3 as well as topping FP4 prior to qualifying, though he left himself with work to do in the pole shootout after coming up short to provisional pole-man Jack Miller in the early reaches of Q2.
Having been relegated backwards by a flying Bagnaia – his 1:28.796s effort the fastest of the weekend up to that point – Bastianini left it all on the line on his closing gambit to snatch away pole at the line by 0.024s, putting him in the perfect position to try and score a fourth success of the year on Sunday.
Bagnaia therefore had to make do with second, though it was a decent recovery for the Italian having run off into the gravel in his opening Q2 run, while Miller ended up completing the front row on the second factory Ducati.
Jorge Martin rounded off the Ducati 1-2-3-4 domination for the Italian brand less than two-tenths-of-a-second adrift of Bastinaini, while series leader Fabio Quartararo claimed best of the rest for Yamaha in fifth despite having lost around two-tenths in the final split alone.
Johann Zarco was a disappointing sixth having led the way in FP3 on the sister Pramac machine ahead of Maverick Vinales’ Aprilia, with Joan Mir taking eighth for Suzuki just clear of Q1 graduate Aleix Espargaro, who continued to struggle with hustling his RS-GP.
Fabio Di Gianantonio joined Espargaro in escaping the opening segment of qualifying en-route to tenth on the grid, with Alex Rins and KTM’s Brad Binder completing the 12 Q2 combatants.
Luca Marini meanwhile narrowly missed out on the pole shootout by just 0.036s to Di Gianantonio, with LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami also missing out by fractions, leaving him 14th.
Struggling factory rider Pol Espargaro, Franco Morbidelli and Miguel Oliveira – competing with Honda, Yamaha and KTM respectively – all slumped to 15th, 16th and 17th, while the sister VR46 entry of Marco Bezzecchi saw his Q2 chances ended with a crash at the chicane towards the end of the session.
Alex Marquez also fell victim to the bend while shadowing the Italian, the pair both losing the front of their respective machines while navigating the second phase of the complex, thus leaving them only 21st and 25th.
