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Autosport

Sport

MotoGP Catalan GP: Espargaro takes home pole, Marquez only 14th

Espargaro Ducati Francesco Bagnaia Pecco Bagnaia Jorge Martin Honda Marc Marquez Aprilia KTM Yamaha

On Thursday ahead of this weekend’s sixth round of the 2024 season, Espargaro grabbed a first pole of the season with a new lap record of 1m38.190s at the end of a dramatic Q2.

Espargaro hailed the pole laps as “the best of my life”, saying: “I don’t have 100 pole position in my career, so even if it’s just one Saturday at my home GP it’s amazing to achieve the pole and especially fighting with Pecco [Bagnaia], because with the first tyre the time he proposed was amazing.

“When I came back to the garage I said, ‘oh my God, with the first tyre at 1m38.2s, we’re going to have to go 1m37s’.

“And with the second tyre I made many mistakes on the first flying lap and on the second flying lap it was probably the best lap of my life.”

For much of the session, it looked like reigning world champion Francesco Bagnaia would take pole on the factory Ducati having set the best pace at the end of the first runs of Q2.

But a blistering final lap from Espargaro saw him snatch the position away by 0.031 seconds from Bagnaia, while Trackhouse Racing’s Raul Fernandez was third.

Championship leader Jorge Martin crashed his Pramac Ducati late on at Turn 2 and was left in seventh.

Failing to get out Q1 for the second round in a row, Gresini’s Marc Marquez will have to start from 14th for this weekend’s sprint and grand prix.

Marc Marquez, Gresini Racing (Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images)

Ducati’s Enea Bastianini set the reference lap at the start of the 15-minute Q2 at 1m40.335s, though the lap record had already been bested in the preceding Q1 session by Fabio Di Giannantonio with the 1m38.208s that knocked Marquez out.

On his first flying lap, Martin put in a 1m38.401s to go 0.374s clear of the field, before Pedro Acosta bettered this with a 1m38.369s on his Tech3 GasGas.

Seconds later, Bagnaia put in a 1m38.221s with around nine minutes remaining to assume control of the session.

After a brief lull on track as the riders took on fresh rubber, Bagnaia’s pole was given a degree of comfort when Martin crashed at Turn 2 with just over two minutes to go.

The Pramac rider lost the front as he changed direction into the Turn 2 right-hander, while team-mate Franco Morbidelli slid off behind him – albeit later into the corner.

Bagnaia was unable to improve on his second run laps, while Espargaro leaped up to second on his penultimate tour before setting the best first sector of the session on his final lap.

Espargaro kept his sector split times up and came through to post a 1m39.190s to beat Bagnaia and Binder, who crashed twice on Friday.

However, Fernandez – who came through Q1 – had a lap good enough for third reinstated after it was initially cancelled for being set under yellow flags, giving both rider and Trackhouse Racing its first front row in MotoGP.

Raul Fernandez, Trackhouse Racing Team (Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images)

Binder now heads row two in fourth from Acosta and Q1 pacesetter Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati), while Jorge Martin is seventh.

Martin will start ahead of Yamaha’s Alex Rins and KTM’s Jack Miller.

The top 12 was completed by Morbidelli, Bastianini and the sister factory team Aprilia of Maverick Vinales.

Alex Marquez put in a lap at the end of Q1 that put him ahead of his brother and Gresini team-mate Marc Marquez in 13th.

Fabio Quartararo struggled to 17th on his Yamaha, with Johann Zarco top Honda on his LCR-run bike despite a crash at the end of Q1.

Q2 results:

1 - 2
Cla	Rider	#	Bike	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Speed Trap
1	A. Espargaro Aprilia Racing Team	41	Aprilia	7	1'38.190		173.308	349
2	F. Bagnaia Ducati Team	1	Ducati	8	+0.031 1'38.221	0.031	173.254	349
3	B. Binder Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	33	KTM	8	+0.144 1'38.334	0.113	173.055	352
4	P. Acosta Tech 3	31	KTM	8	+0.179 1'38.369	0.035	172.993	352
5	F. Di Giannantonio Team VR46	49	Ducati	8	+0.210 1'38.400	0.031	172.939	349
6	J. Martin Pramac Racing	89	Ducati	5	+0.211 1'38.401	0.001	172.937	350
7	R. Fernández Trackhouse Racing Team	25	Aprilia	7	+0.401 1'38.591	0.190	172.603	350
8	A. Rins Yamaha Factory Racing	42	Yamaha	7	+0.502 1'38.692	0.101	172.427	349
9	J. Miller Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	43	KTM	7	+0.573 1'38.763	0.071	172.303	350
10	F. Morbidelli Pramac Racing	21	Ducati	5	+0.588 1'38.778	0.015	172.277	349
11	E. Bastianini Ducati Team	23	Ducati	8	+0.670 1'38.860	0.082	172.134	350
12	M. Viñales Aprilia Racing Team	12	Aprilia	6	+0.782 1'38.972	0.112	171.939	347
View full results

Q1 results:

1 - 2
Cla	Rider	#	Bike	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Speed Trap
1	F. Di Giannantonio Team VR46	49	Ducati	8	1'38.208		173.277	351
2	R. Fernández Trackhouse Racing Team	25	Aprilia	8	+0.245 1'38.453	0.245	172.845	349
3	A. Marquez Gresini Racing	73	Ducati	8	+0.322 1'38.530	0.077	172.710	348
4	M. Marquez Gresini Racing	93	Ducati	8	+0.328 1'38.536	0.006	172.700	351
5	M. Oliveira Trackhouse Racing Team	88	Aprilia	8	+0.343 1'38.551	0.015	172.674	354
6	M. Bezzecchi Team VR46	72	Ducati	8	+0.454 1'38.662	0.111	172.479	355
7	F. Quartararo Yamaha Factory Racing	20	Yamaha	8	+0.497 1'38.705	0.043	172.404	349
8	J. Zarco Team LCR	5	Honda	7	+0.770 1'38.978	0.273	171.929	351
9	A. Fernandez Tech 3	37	KTM	8	+0.912 1'39.120	0.142	171.682	355
10	T. Nakagami Team LCR	30	Honda	8	+0.948 1'39.156	0.036	171.620	347
11	J. Mir Repsol Honda Team	36	Honda	7	+1.316 1'39.524	0.368	170.985	351
12	L. Marini Repsol Honda Team	10	Honda	8	+1.413 1'39.621	0.097	170.819	348
13	S. Bradl HRC Test Team	6	Honda	8	+2.068 1'40.276	0.655	169.703	349
View full results