Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin produced a blinding record-breaking lap to edge out Francesco Bagnaia to take pole position for MotoGP’s Italian Grand Prix at Mugello.
The Spaniard delivered when it mattered in the all-important Q2 session to record a 1:44.504s which would not be bettered as Bagnaia ended up 0.043 seconds down.
Maverick Vinales impressed to secure third place on the Aprilia, which will translate into second position in the main race as Bagnaia takes on a three-place grid drop.
Meanwhile, Marc Marquez was a quarter of a second up on Martin’s lap time on his second run, but a crash undid his good work and meant he had to settle for fourth.
But Bagnaia’s impeding incident with the other Marquez in practice means the Gresini Ducati rider will be promoted to the front row as he chases an elusive race win.
Alongside the eight-time champion on the second row in the Sprint will be fellow Ducati riders Enea Bastianini and Pramac’s Franco Morbidelli, who avoided a Q1 exit.
However, Morbidelli wound up a tenth slower than the time he managed to post to front the opening session, which proved costly as he was 0.016s behind Bastianini.
GasGas rider Pedro Acosta shone once more as he qualified as the lead KTM competitor in seventh place, over five-tenths behind Martin’s blistering benchmark pace.
Alex Marquez made it two Gresini bikes inside the fastest eight riders, with Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and lead Yamaha qualifier Alex Rins completing the top 10 places.
Raul Fernandez ensured both Trackhouse riders were in the Q2 shootout, but the Spaniard could not better 12th and will start alongside his team-mate Miguel Oliveira.
However, Brad Binder could not avoid a premature Q1 elimination on his KTM bike and had to settle for 12th, with VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio 0.013s further behind.
Fabio Quartararo was unable to replicate his Yamaha team-mate’s pace and languished down in 15th, but the Frenchman is still well-placed to score points tomorrow.
Marco Bezzecchi wound up as the slowest Ducati rider in 16th on the sister VR46, with Joan Mir elevating his works Honda bike to his highest starting spot this term.
Johann Zarco was therefore not classified as the lead Honda rider on this occasion on the satellite LCR bike, but the French entrant was still an improved 18th place.
Following Zarco came a KTM trio which Jack Miller headed, with Augusto Fernandez’s GasGas splitting the marque’s factory bikes as Pol Espargaro was 21st overall.
Aprilia’s Lorenzo Salvadori was 22nd on the timesheets, while Takaaki Nakagami couldn’t replicate his encouraging practice times and was second slowest during Q1.
Luca Marini showed that he is still struggling to get to grips with his Repsol-sponsored Honda as he finished over four-tenths down on the Japanese rider in last spot.
