Maverick Vinales bettered Jorge Martin’s lap record from practice to claim pole position for this weekend’s MotoGP races at the Circuit of the Americas.
The Aprilia rider posted a best effort of 2:00.864s to claim top spot, three-tenths clear of rookie sensation Pedro Acosta and Gresini Ducati’s Marc Marquez.
Acosta will start the Sprint and main race on the front row as he registered a time over a second faster than the next KTM bike, with Marquez the lead Ducati.
Ducati duo Francesco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini rounded out the top five, but points leader Jorge Martin was sixth despite his searing earlier practice pace.
A late crash from Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro put him in seventh place, ahead of Fabio Di Gianantonio and Franco Morbidelli to close out the third row of the grid.
Marco Bezzechi also suffered an incident at the end of the session, but the VR46 team will be pleased with a top-10 start following a tough start to the season.
Finishers from Q1 Jack Miller and Alex Marquez rounded off proceedings with 11th and 12th placed qualifications, with the latter choosing not to set a lap time.
Trackhouse Aprilla pair Raul Fernandez and Miguel Oliveria narrowly missed out on Q2 at the American outfit’s home round while Yamaha also failed to progress.
However, Alex Rins did provide a shock as he out-qualified team-mate Fabio Quartararo to 15th place as the Frenchman suffered a late fall in the closing exchanges.
Brad Binder was a surprise inclusion in Q1 and endured an afternoon to forget as he crashed on his opening run, resigning him to placing 17th on the starting grid.
Elsewhere, GasGas KTM rider Augusto Fernandez will follow behind Binder as he qualified in 18th in what has been a difficult weekend overall for the Spanish rider.
Johann Zarco once again qualified as the lead Honda rider, with 2020 World Champion Joan Mir following as Takaaki Nakagami and Luca Marini closed out the grid.
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