Marquez takes pole by 0.391s at Aragon

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]The riders emerged for their second runs and nine-time World Champion Valentino Rossi (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) managed to launch himself to P5 from P10, a solid lap from ‘The Doctor’. Vinales then stuck his YZR-M1 into second place, but he remained 0.4 adrift of Marquez. The latter was right behind Vinales and managed to slightly improve his time down to a 1:47.009 as the goalposts were moved further away. The top duo’s work was done as the clocked ticked down to under a minute, but a rookie sensation wasn’t.

Quartararo started his final flying lap and was over a tenth in the red after the first split. Were we about to witness one of the upsets of the season? After the second split, the 20-year-old’s advantage was hovering around a tenth and at the third, there was nothing to choose between Quartararo and Marquez. A long straight and a fast sweeping left-hander was to come – a sector that hasn’t suited the Yamaha this weekend – and as Quartararo took the chequered flag, three tenths went astray as Aragon GP pole position went to Marquez. Nonetheless, Quartararo’s time was enough to put him P2 ahead of Yamaha counterpart Vinales. Is it Marquez vs Yamaha once more on Sunday?

Miller did sit on a provisional front row before Quartararo’s last lap, the Aussie by far the leading Ducati rider on Saturday – as he was on Friday – at MotorLand Aragon. Espargaro’s 1:47.733 initially placed him on the front row, before Miller and Quartararo manoeuvred the Spaniard down to P5. A middle of the front row start is his and Aprilia’s best Q2 result of the season though, with Rossi’s second-run lap good enough to see him place sixth ahead of Sunday’s race.