Qualifying report
MotoGP Aragon GP
Aragon MotoGP: Bagnaia snatches pole, Marquez 13th on comeback
Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia snatched Aragon Grand Prix pole from teammate Jack Miller as Marc Marquez failed to progress from Q1 in 13th ahead of his MotoGP race comeback.
Lewis Duncan
Edited: Sep 17, 2022, 3:32 PM
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Having won 10 of the last 20 grands prix, Bagnaia is the rider in form at the moment as he looks to extend his run of four-successive victories in 2022 to further eat into championship leader Fabio Quartararo’s gap.
Firing in a 1m46.069s at the end to smash the existing lap record, Bagnaia celebrated his first pole since the Dutch Grand Prix back in June.
The early pace in Q2 was set by the Gresini Ducati of Enea Bastianini, who went top with a 1m46.580s.
While the order behind the Italian chopped and changed, he would sit top of the pile until Bagnaia fired in his pole time with just under a minute of the session remaining.
Bagnaia took pole by 0.090s from Jack Miller on the sister factory team Ducati, as Bastianini completed the front row.
Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro had to come through Q1 and had just one fresh soft tyre to use in Q2 to try and salvage a so far difficult weekend.
Making several mistakes under braking across his various laps, a final effort of 1m46.590s put him to the head of the second row in fourth.
Johann Zarco followed Espargaro through Q1 and put his Pramac Ducati into fifth ahead of a struggling Quartararo.
The Yamaha rider almost crashed going through the Turn 2 right-hander in the latter stages of Q2 having slumped to the outer reaches of the top 10.
A final lap of 1m46.802s was only good enough to put the reigning world champion sixth on the grid surrounded by a rapid armada of Ducatis.
Marco Bezzecchi was seventh on his VR46 Ducati ahead of Pramac’s Jorge Martin, while Alex Rins flew the flag for Suzuki in ninth after teammate Joan Mir was forced to withdraw from the remainder of the Aragon GP due to injury.
The factory KTM team duo of Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira were 10th and 11th, with LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami 12th.
Lining up 13th comes Marc Marquez ahead of his first MotoGP race since the Italian Grand Prix back in May.
The factory Honda rider was in the battle for the top two positions throughout Q1, but was shuffled down to third when the yellow flags were flown for a crash for teammate Pol Espargaro.
This ultimately denied Marquez the opportunity to try and improve on his 1m46.909s, meaning he missed a place in Q2 by just 0.066s.
Luca Marini also failed to make it out of Q1 on the second VR46 Ducati in 14th ahead of Gresini’s Fabio Di Giannantonio and Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales, who was left in 16th after registering his first crash of the season at Turn 2 on his final flying lap.
Alex Marquez will start 17th on his LCR Honda ahead of Pol Espargaro and MotoGP returnee Cal Crutchlow on the RNF Yamaha.
He outpaced factory Yamaha rider Franco Morbidelli by just over a tenth in 20th, with Tech 3 duo Remy Gardner and Raul Fernandez, and Darryn Binder on the sister RNF bike completing the depleted 23-rider grid.
The 23-lap MotoGP Aragon GP will get underway at 2pm local time on Sunday.
Q2 results:
Cla Rider Bike Time Gap 1 Francesco Bagnaia
Ducati 1'46.069 2 Jack Miller
Ducati 1'46.159 0.090 3 Enea Bastianini
Ducati 1'46.313 0.244 4 Aleix Espargaro
Aprilia 1'46.590 0.521 5 Johann Zarco
Ducati 1'46.646 0.577 6 Fabio Quartararo
Yamaha 1'46.802 0.733 7 Marco Bezzecchi
Ducati 1'46.852 0.783 8 Jorge Martin
Ducati 1'46.911 0.842 9 Alex Rins
Suzuki 1'46.912 0.843 10 Brad Binder
KTM 1'46.924 0.855 11 Miguel Oliveira
KTM 1'47.183 1.114 12 Takaaki Nakagami
Honda 1'47.274 1.205 View full results
Q1 results:
Cla Rider Bike Time Gap 1 Aleix Espargaro
Aprilia 1'46.569 2 Johann Zarco
Ducati 1'46.843 0.274 3 Marc Marquez
Honda 1'46.909 0.340 4 Luca Marini
Ducati 1'47.056 0.487 5 Fabio Di Giannantonio
Ducati 1'47.119 0.550 6 Maverick Viñales
Aprilia 1'47.337 0.768 7 Alex Marquez
Honda 1'47.489 0.920 8 Pol Espargaro
Honda 1'47.511 0.942 9 Cal Crutchlow
Yamaha 1'47.541 0.972 10 Franco Morbidelli
Yamaha 1'47.651 1.082 11 Raúl Fernández
KTM 1'47.671 1.102 12 Remy Gardner
KTM 1'47.847 1.278 13 Darryn Binder
Yamaha 1'49.309 2.740 View full results
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