Marquez takes pole at the Red Bull Ring

After a moist morning, the track dried just in time for MotoGP’s FP4 and two qualifying sessions. The climax was thrilling, with the top trio inside two tenths, and Marc Marquez claiming his fourth pole of the year by two little thousandths of a second.

The Repsol Honda rider had been fastest in all previous sessions, wet and dry, but said laughingly afterwards: “I was joking a bit with Dovi – this track looks like Ducati-land.”

And it was Dovi who all but beat him, with his factory Ducati team-mate Jorge Lorenzo a close third, at a circuit whose simple layout, hard braking and fierce acceleration plays much to the Italian bike’s strengths.

The trio had swapped pole between them, before Marquez made his final bid.

“Tomorrow’s warm up will be crucial – to find the right tyre,” said Marquez, reflecting that so far only FP1 and FP4 had been dry.

Dovizioso was on pole last weekend, and said then that “pole is not my style” He repeated the sentiment. “The front row is always the target, and I am happy with the lap time. I think we [three] will be the riders who can fight for victory and the podium, but we are very different, so we will see what happens.

Lorenzo was happy for the same reason, although his final attack to try to get back on top had fallen narrowly short. “My first tyre was not so good; the second was better. But there was some confusion in the pit and we didn’t fit a new front tyre, and because of that I was not able to improve my time at the end.”

Danilo Petrucci (Alma Pramac Ducati) was less than two tenths down to head row two, from Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda) and Johann Zarco (Monster Yamaha), who had salvaged Yamaha’s honour on a bad day for the factory riders.

With Tito Rabat (Reale Avintia Ducati), Andrea Iannone (Ecstar Suzuki) and Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) on row three and Alex Rins (Ecstar Suzuki) heading the fourth, Maverick Vinales (Movistar Yamaha) qualified 11th, in the middle of row four.

Things were even worse for team-mate Valentino Rossi. Only 11th in the dry FP1 he had to go into Q1, where he could only manage fourth place. While Alvaro Bautista (Angel Nieto Ducati) and Alex Rins (Ecstar Suzuki) went through to Q2, Rossi will start tomorrow from 14th, the middle of row five.

It was Rossi’s worst qualifying since the Australian GP in 2016, where he qualified 15th but finished second to Cal Crutchlow in a race of many crashes.

Moto2

Moto2 was interrupted by a red flag after Brno pole qualifier Luca Marini (SKY VR46 Kalex) shed some debris in an otherwise innocuous crash. By then, his team-mate Pecco Bagnaia had already put himself on his third pole of the season, with a time that he improved three more times.

“I am on pole four times,” he said. But he was out of breath, after a long push home after running out of fuel before the end of the session.

Third-fastest qualifier Fabio Quartararo (Speed Up) had also stopped before the end of the session, blaming “a battery problem” which left him no chance to improve.

In between them, Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM) put in his best qualifying of the year. His problem came in the morning, when he was hit from behind in FP3, lucky to escape unhurt in the subsequent crash.

As usual this year, times were close, with 18 within the first second. Unusually, the order shuffled through the session – as a rule best times are set in the early stages.

Jorge Navarro (Federal Oil Kalex) will head row two from Alex Marquez (VDS Kalex) and Mattia Pasini (Italtrans Kalex); Marcel Schrotter (Dynavolt Kalex the third from Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM) and Lorenzo Baldassarri (Pons HP40 Kalex).

Baldassarri was another whose session came to an early end, at a track where hard acceleration punishes fuel consumption.

Moto3

With a damp start but an almost full dry line by the end, Moto23 qualifying ended in a breathless shoot-out for pole. The name topping the list changed over and over in the closing minutes and after the flag, as riders made the most of the slick tyres they’d fitted barely ten minutes before the end of the session.

Good timing and hard riding gave title leader Marco Bezzecchi (Redox KTM) a career-first pole by 0.078 of a second. But the hero of the session was his title rival Jorge Martin (Del Conca Honda). The Spaniard broke his left wrist eight days earlier, flying home for plating and pinning. Now he was back, one of five or six riders to hold provisional pole in the final flurry, and ending up second, just a whisker slower.

Bezzecchi slowed at the end of the session to symbolically tip his cap to his rival.

Albert Arenas (Angel Nieto KTM) was third, half a second down as times spread out. Aron Canet (EG Honda) – another erstwhile pole-sitter – leads row two from Tony Arbolino (Marinelli Honda) and Gabriel Rodrigo (RBA KTM). Behind them, Marcos Ramirez (Bester KTM) got ahead of earlier session leader Philipp Oettl (Sudmetal KTM) and Enea Bastianini (Leopard Honda).

Brno winner Fabio Di Giannantonio (Del Conca Honda) was 16th, two seconds off pole; John McPhee (Green Power KTM) was unqualified after two crashes, and will start from the back of the grid.