Aleix Espargaro bagged pole position for the MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix with a blistering final run in the dying embers of the session, ending a year-long pole drought in fairytale fashion after shortly announcing his retirement.
Espargaro bettered his lap time record from yesterday in front of his home crowd and the 34-year-old posted a 1.38.190s effort, stealing pole position from Francesco Bagnaia’s grasp.
Brad Binder put his KTM bike in third place, with rookie Pedro Acosta closely behind to make amends after a difficult outing at Le Mans last time out.
Fabio Di Giannantonio earned himself a more than respectable fifth place for both races, where he overcame the depths of Q1 to put himself in contention for a podium appearance in Saturday afternoon’s Sprint.
The Pramac Ducati duo had a qualifying session to forget duo to both riders’ final runs resulting in them crashing in a tandem at Turn 2, which led to Jorge Martin and Franco Morbidelli settling for sixth and 10th respectively.
Raul Fernandez will be delighted with his qualification of seventh aboard the Trackhouse Aprilia, followed by Enea Bastianini who was struggling in the practice leading up to qualifying.
Yamaha’s Alex Rins earned himself a Q2 spot following on from an impressive practice on Friday and will start the race in eighth as KTM’s Jack Miller took ninth.
Maverick Vinales had to settle for 12th, in contrast to his team-mate’s success so far this weekend, which will mean he has it all to do for the Sprint and Sunday race.
The Gresini Ducati duo of Alex and Marc Marquez set the early pace in Q1 but were unable to improve drastically on their second runs leaving them in 13th and 14th respectively.
Miguel Oliveira was unfortunate not to put his bike into Q2 like his Trackhouse team-mate and could only muster 15th.
Marco Bezzecchi’s weekend struggles went from bad to worse at the Catalunya circuit with the Italian qualifying in 16th, as 2021 champion Fabio Quartararo had to settle for 17th despite being in strong contention to make it through to Q2 earlier in the Q1 session.
Another late crash from Johann Zarco put his Q2 qualification bid to an abrupt end but his lap earlier in the session meant he finished as the lead Honda rider in 18th.
Augusto Fernandez, the only KTM rider on the grid who had to go through Q1, will have it all to do for both races as he qualified an underwhelming 19th.
More so the expectation each weekend, the rest of the Honda riders occupy the final spots on the grid with LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami edging the Repsol Honda duo of Joan Mir and Luca Marini.
Honda test rider Stefan Bradl was in a world of his own as he qualified a further half a second down in last place.
