MotoGP: Bagnaia nips Marquez for pole at Le Mans

–by Mark Cipolloni–

After a three-round absence with a fractured hand, Marc Marquez almost won the MotoGP pole upon his return at LeMans Saturday, but the HP advantage of Francesco Bagnaia’s Ducati was too much to overcome.

Defending champion Bagnaia’s lap of 1m30.705s was 0.058s clear of the Repsol Honda rider who is running the Kalex-built chassis that’s making its grand prix weekend debut this weekend.

Marquez had to use the tow of another Ducati (Jorge Martin) to secure 2nd place.

Marc Marquez did not expect to challenge for pole on his return

Luca Marini in another Ducati will start on the outside of row 1.

Jack Miller took fourth place as the lead KTM, ahead of Martin and Vinales, followed by an all-Ducati third row of Marco Bezzecchi (VR46), Alex Marquez (Gresini) and Johann Zarco (Pramac).

Ducati power is hard to beat in MotoGP these days and Marquez will have to out drive them to win on Sunday – an almost impossible task.

Le Mans Race Lineup

Pos	No.	Rider	Bike	Laps	Time	Behind	Gap
1	1	Francesco Bagnaia	Ducati	9	1m30.705s	0.000	0.000
2	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	9	1m30.763s	0.058	0.058
3	10	Luca Marini	Ducati	8	1m30.842s	0.137	0.079
4	43	Jack Miller	KTM	8	1m30.984s	0.279	0.142
5	89	Jorge Martin	Ducati	8	1m31.023s	0.318	0.039
6	12	Maverick Viñales	Aprilia	7	1m31.120s	0.415	0.097
7	72	Marco Bezzecchi	Ducati	9	1m31.173s	0.468	0.053
8	73	Alex Marquez	Ducati	8	1m31.275s	0.570	0.102
9	5	Johann Zarco	Ducati	8	1m31.298s	0.593	0.023
10	33	Brad Binder	KTM	7	1m31.445s	0.740	0.147
11	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	7	1m31.523s	0.818	0.078
12	37	Augusto Fernandez	KTM	8	1m31.596s	0.891	0.073
13	20	Fabio Quartararo	Yamaha	8	1m31.366s	0.098	0.023
14	30	Takaaki Nakagami	Honda	8	1m31.545s	0.277	0.179
15	49	Fabio Di Giannantonio	Ducati	9	1m31.718s	0.450	0.173
16	36	Joan Mir	Honda	8	1m31.810s	0.542	0.092
17	21	Franco Morbidelli	Yamaha	8	1m31.886s	0.618	0.076
18	42	Alex Rins	Honda	8	1m31.959s	0.691	0.073
19	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	9	1m32.092s	0.824	0.133
20	32	Lorenzo Savadori	Aprilia	8	1m32.410s	1.142	0.318
21	94	Jonas Folger	KTM	8	1m33.605s	2.337	1.195