Marquez Shatters Lap Record to Take Aragon Pole

Marc leads brother Alex once again, while Morbidelli pushes Bagnaia off the front row to take P3 on the grid

Marc Marquez stole the show in a thrilling qualifying session, breaking his own lap record from last year with a stunning 1:45.704 to take pole position. He led the field out in for his opening flying run of Q2 with Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco tucked in behind, pushing hard from the get-go with a big snap into Turn 1, and spinning the rear through Turn 3. Zarco, notably, was not being dropped.

On his first flyer, Marc immediately dropped into the 1:45s, setting the tone early. Behind him, Fabio Quartararo was giving it everything — rubbing his shoulder on the tarmac through the final turn — but could only manage sixth fastest.

Alex Marquez responded well on his second lap, improving and getting to within two tenths of his brother. Meanwhile, it was a nightmare start to Q2 for Bagnaia, who found himself dead last, his best effort ruined by a massive moment on the brakes into Turn 8.

Pedro Acosta continued his impressive form, looking strong and topping the KTM effort. He held P3 at one stage, just 0.335s back. Maverick Viñales, however, couldn’t back up his strong practice form, while Brad Binder jumped up the order for a second row grid spot at the halfway mark.

With riders heading out for their second runs, Bagnaia flashed a red helmet in Sector 1 as he began a stronger lap. Though he was 0.2 down through Sector 3, he crossed the line to take P4 and had time for one more. Meanwhile Alex Marquez was nearly two tenths up through the first sector on his second flying run, nailing the final left handers to storm to provisional pole.

Just behind, Franco Morbidelli fired in a beauty of a lap. A blistering first half of the lap had him just 0.020 down through Sector 3, and while he couldn’t quite knock his way into the top two, he slotted into an impressive third — suddenly, Marc had work to do.

But the elder Marquez clearly had time in his pocket. He was just 0.005 down through Sector 3 on his final lap despite a massive head shake while changing direction into Turn 13. It looked like it might’ve cost him, but when the third sector time flashed up he was 2 tenths under Alex’s time, so strong was he through those that string of long lefts and chicanes. Marc had his elbow down as the rear tyre squirmed all the way through the final lefts and as he crossed the line he made pole position a formality with a new lap record 1:45.704.

Bagnaia recovered well late in the session to make it an all-Ducati top four, followed by the KTMs of Acosta and Binder in fifth and sixth – Binder’s best qualifying effort this year. Fermin Aldeguer was next, slotting into seventh ahead of Viñales, who will be disappointed given he felt like he could challenge for the front row.

Quartararo’s run of consecutive poles came to a deflating end as he settled for P9, while Fabio Di Giannantonio did well to get through Q1 but couldn’t convert it into a top grid spot. The Hondas of Mir and Zarco rounded out Q2 with 11th and 12th respectively.

Once again, Marc Marquez is looking nigh-on unstoppable at Aragon, a track he owned here last year even on a clearly underperforming GP23 Ducati. The rest of the field look like they’re fighting for the podium scraps at this stage, but anything can and does happen in MotoGP.

Marc Márquez – “Yes, I mean, the first lap and with the first tire was clean. Even I just did one lap and then I stopped to say OK, already a 1:45.9 without exaggerating. But then I exaggerated too much trying to be too fast, even lost time. And yeah, let’s see. Of course the riding style for the main race and the sprint race is different. It was not the smoothest track of my life but let’s see if we can keep going.”

Alex Marquez – “I mean, to understand the crash was quite easy. I went too fast in that point for the number of laps of the tire that I had, and I was still a little bit too optimistic to go in that corner with that speed. I was already really fast in the warm-up lap and I just lost the front. My mechanic isn’t here for me because they are in the garage already working with the bike, because it was damaged… but in the end it was  first goal done because I was able to be on the front row quite on the right to be on the clean path. But yeah, happy to be front row, and you know, we know that here, Marc is faster than us, but we’re closest competitors, so we’ll try to do maximum and to minimize the difference of the points.”

Franco Morbidelli – “So we did a great job compared to yesterday, we improved a lot. I had a much better feeling today than yesterday and we were able to fight for the front row, which is a great thing nowadays. Even if, I mean, we’ve been recovering from third row, fourth row, even fifth row—but you know—starting in the first line, it’s much better for me. So I’m really happy. I’m really pleased about the job the team has done. Yesterday we tried to understand for good what we needed to do to get better, and today was the case. So I’m happy.”

Aragon MotoGP Qualifying