Francesco Bagnaia put himself in the perfect position to further close on the MotoGP series lead by flying to pole at Aragon, while title rival Fabio Quartararo managed sixth.
The red rockets were expected to pace the field once again in qualifying for the Aragon Grand Prix, though it would be the Gresini-run satellite machine of Enea Bastianini that would score provisional pole during the opening runs, the Italian banging in a 1:46.580s effort – just shy of the fastest lap of the weekend set by Aleix Espargaro in Q1.
With Bagnaia slotting in just behind his 2023 factory Ducati team-mate, the championship charger looked to try and go one better as he began his final run, the 2018 Moto2 world champion posting fastest sector after fastest sector before firing in a blistering 1:46.069s to snatch away the initiative.
Team-mate Jack Miller looked to be going even faster, though a slower second half of the tour meant he ultimately slotted in 0.090s adrift of Bagnaia, securing him an important fifth pole position of 2022.
Bastianini wasn’t able to find the same level of improvement as the factory duo and thus had to settle for the final spot of the front row in third, while Espargaro impressively bagged fourth for Aprilia despite having had to contest Q1 as well as losing the first lap on his final run after running wide at Turn 1.
Johann Zarco joined Espargaro in graduating from the opening qualifying segment and took fifth on his Pramac Ducati, while Quartararo ended up sixth – an alarming 0.733s down of Bagnaia’s benchmark – after continuing to lack the power to be competitive in the final sector of the lap.
Marco Bezzecchi was the highest-placed rookie in seventh for VR46 ahead of Jorge Martin, the Spaniard recovering from a crash in the preceding FP4 outing to salvage eighth ahead of Suzuki’s Alex Rins and the factory KTM of Brad Binder.
The sister KTM of Miguel Oliveira came three-tenths-of-a-second away from displacing Binder as the first of the RC16’s, while Takaaki Nakagami completed the 12 pole shootout runners.
The big name missing out on Q2 was of course Marc Marquez, the Honda rider having displayed impressive speed on his MotoGP return through practice.
Marquez eventually fell victim to poorly-timed yellow flags on his final run in Q1, meaning he wasn’t able to set a competitive final lap and thus had to settle for 13th on the grid for Sunday’s Aragon GP, though he would likely move forward from there.
The yellow flag period – ironically caused by Marquez’s Honda team-mate Pol Espargaro – also prevented anyone else from going faster, leaving VR46’s Luca Marini only 14th having looked strong in practice ahead of 16th placed Maverick Vinales, the Aprilia man crashing at Turn 2 on his crucial final Q1 gambit – his first crash on the RS-GP this season.
Returning Yamaha test rider Cal Crutchlow – making his first start of the year with the RNF Racing squad – managed to squeak ahead of factory Yamaha racer Franco Morbidelli by just over a tenth, the Brit taking 19th with Morbidelli 20th.
Augusto Fernandez won the battle of the Tech 3 KTM’s in 21st ahead of Remy Gardner, while the second RNF Yamaha of Darryn Binder completed the field in 23rd.
