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MotoGP Italian GP: Martin takes pole, Marc Marquez fourth after crash

Martin, who leads the championship by 39 points coming into the Mugello round, scored his third pole of the year with a new lap record of 1m44.504s set on his first flying lap.

The Spaniard, who looks set to step up to the factory Ducati team in 2025, beat reigning champion and last year’s Italian GP winner Bagnaia.

The Italian was just 0.043 seconds behind Martin, though will have to drop three grid spots for the grand prix after impeding Alex Marquez in practice on Friday afternoon.

Maverick Vinales completed the top three on his factory Aprilia, while Marc Marquez scored his best qualifying result since he was on pole at Jerez despite crashing late on in Q2.

The lap record was already beaten in the Q1 session by Pramac Ducati rider Franco Morbidelli, who topped that 15-minute segment with a 1m44.726s.

Team-mate Martin, on his first flying lap, lit up the timing screens at the start of Q2 and produced a 1m44.504s.

But Martin would never better this across the rest of the session and came under fire as the session wound down.

Bagnaia came close and was up on Martin through the first three sectors of his best lap, but lost out in the final split and came up just short with a 1m44.547s.

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team, Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing, Maverick Vinales, Aprilia Racing Team (Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images)

The factory Ducati rider will start second for Saturday’s sprint race, but for the grand prix he will be demoted to fifth.

Bagnaia was seething in parc ferme about this punishment, calling it a “clown penalty”.

“It’s one of the greatest thing I could do today, starting on the front row, because this clown penalty is something useless,” he said.

“But in any case, today it will be important to start well, to do the maximum. We know that our pace is very, very fast. So, I know if I can be leading in the first laps we can have a good advantage.”

Aprilia’s Vinales put together a good final lap, but also lost out in the final sector and had to settle for third.

Gresini Ducati’s Marc Marquez looked like he was on course to beat Martin’s time with just under three minutes to go in Q2, but crashed going into Turn 10.

Despite this, Marquez held onto fourth in his first Q2 appearance since the Spanish GP and will be promoted to the front row for the grand prix courtesy of Bagnaia’s podium.

Enea Bastianini was fifth on the sister factory team Ducati ahead of Q1 pacesetter Morbidelli, while Tech3 rookie Pedro Acosta headed row three in seventh on the sole KTM in Q2.

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

Alex Marquez was eighth on his Gresini Ducati, with Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) and Yamaha’s Alex Rins completing the top 10, while Trackhouse Aprilia duo Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez capped off row four.

KTM’s Brad Binder couldn’t lift himself out of Q1 and will start 13th, while Fabio Quartararo couldn’t scale the same heights as his Yamaha team-mate Rins down in 15th.

Joan Mir was the fastest Honda in 17th.

MotoGP Italian GP - Q2 results:

   
1
 - 
5
   
   
1
 - 
2
   
Cla Rider # Bike Laps Time Interval km/h Speed Trap
1 Spain J. Martin Pramac Racing 89 Ducati 7

1'44.504

  180.682  
2 Italy F. Bagnaia Ducati Team 1 Ducati 8

+0.043

1'44.547

0.043 180.607  
3 Spain M. Viñales Aprilia Racing Team 12 Aprilia 6

+0.183

1'44.687

0.140 180.366  
4 Spain M. Marquez Gresini Racing 93 Ducati 5

+0.280

1'44.784

0.097 180.199  
5 Italy E. Bastianini Ducati Team 23 Ducati 8

+0.376

1'44.880

0.096 180.034  
6 Italy F. Morbidelli Pramac Racing 21 Ducati 7

+0.392

1'44.896

0.016 180.006  
7 Spain P. Acosta Tech 3 31 KTM 8

+0.524

1'45.028

0.132 179.780  
8 Spain A. Marquez Gresini Racing 73 Ducati 8

+0.704

1'45.208

0.180 179.473  
9 Spain A. Espargaro Aprilia Racing Team 41 Aprilia 7

+0.732

1'45.236

0.028 179.425  
10 Spain A. Rins Yamaha Factory Racing 42 Yamaha 8

+0.792

1'45.296

0.060 179.323  
11 Portugal M. Oliveira Trackhouse Racing Team 88 Aprilia 8

+0.873

1'45.377

0.081 179.185  
12 Spain R. Fernández Trackhouse Racing Team 25 Aprilia 6

+0.954

1'45.458

0.081 179.047  

MotoGP Italian GP - Q1 results:

   
1
 - 
5
   
   
1
 - 
2
   
Cla Rider # Bike Laps Time Interval km/h Speed Trap
1 Italy F. Morbidelli Pramac Racing 21 Ducati 6

1'44.726

  180.299 352
2 Spain R. Fernández Trackhouse Racing Team 25 Aprilia 6

+0.142

1'44.868

0.142 180.054 351
3 South Africa B. Binder Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 33 KTM 8

+0.268

1'44.994

0.126 179.838 358
4 Italy F. Di Giannantonio Team VR46 49 Ducati 8

+0.281

1'45.007

0.013 179.816 352
5 France F. Quartararo Yamaha Factory Racing 20 Yamaha 6

+0.350

1'45.076

0.069 179.698 356
6 Italy M. Bezzecchi Team VR46 72 Ducati 8

+0.492

1'45.218

0.142 179.455 356
7 Spain J. Mir Repsol Honda Team 36 Honda 8

+1.002

1'45.728

0.510 178.590 358
8 France J. Zarco Team LCR 5 Honda 8

+1.087

1'45.813

0.085 178.446 358
9 Australia J. Miller Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 43 KTM 8

+1.098

1'45.824

0.011 178.428 361
10 Spain A. Fernandez Tech 3 37 KTM 8

+1.167

1'45.893

0.069 178.312 360
11 Spain P. Espargaro Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 44 KTM 6

+1.217

1'45.943

0.050 178.227 364
12 Italy L. Savadori Aprilia Racing Team 32 Aprilia 7

+1.474

1'46.200

0.257 177.796 349
13 Japan T. Nakagami Team LCR 30 Honda 8

+1.539

1'46.265

0.065 177.687 355
14 Italy L. Marini Repsol Honda Team 10 Honda 7

+1.972

1'46.698

0.433 176.966 357
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