Italian Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) won the 17th pole position of his MotoGP career, the sixth in 11 races this season, on Saturday during qualifying for the Catalunya Grand Prix at the Montmelo circuit.
The reigning world champion, usually uncomfortable on a track where he has never done better than sixth, all categories combined, stood up to the Aprilias who had been the fastest on Friday. Bagnaia beat local hero Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) and broke the circuit record set the day before by the Catalan, while Spaniard Maverick Vinales (Aprilia) took third place.
The surprising Portuguese Miguel Oliveira (Aprilia-RNF), who had to go through Q1, set the fourth fastest time, just ahead of the two Ducati-Pramacs of Spaniard Jorge Martin and Frenchman Johann Zarco. The third row will be occupied by the Spaniard Alex Marquez (Ducati-Gresini), his Italian teammate Fabio Di Giannantonio (Ducati-Gresini) and the South African Brad Binder (KTM). Italian Marco Bezzecchi took a disappointing 10th place, ahead of his compatriot Enea Bastionnini (Ducati) and six-time MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez (Honda), who had set the fastest time in Q1 a few minutes earlier. general.
Bagnaia, who is leading the provisional classification of the world championship with respectively 62 and 68 lengths ahead of Martin and Bezzecchi, will have the opportunity to increase his lead on Saturday afternoon during the sprint. Already in difficulty on Friday, Frenchman Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha), who was competing in the qualifying repechages for the sixth time in 11 races this season, did not manage to extricate himself from Q1 and will only start in 17th position. Honda, which had placed its four riders in the last four places in qualifying on Friday, barely did better on Saturday: apart from Marquez, who will start from 12th place, the other three motorcycles achieved the three worst qualifying times.