Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo claimed his second-consecutive MotoGP pole position to the delight of his home fans at Le Mans.
Quartararo took back-to-back poles for the first time since 2021 as he broke the all-time lap record set by Marc Marquez earlier in the qualifying session.
Ai Ogura crashed early in Q1, and while the Japanese rider was unharmed, the red flag was brought out as the marshals could not safely recover his bike.
When the session resumed Johann Zarco and Raul Fernandez found themselves through to Q2 to compete for pole position.
As Q2 commenced, the riders filtered out onto the circuit in their bid to challenge Marquez, who had been the favourite after his pace in practice.
The Spanish rider set a 1:29.442, 0.413s faster than the all-time lap record, as he looked almost invincible on his first lap of the session.
Fabio Quartararo was the only other rider capable of setting a 1:29’ lap, as the front runners separated themselves from the rest of the field.
On the final flying lap, Fermin Aldeguer broke into the top two, but crashed after his lap to bring out the yellow flag.
The yellow flags remained around the circuit as home favourite Zarco crashed to end his session no higher than 10th.
Alex Marquez moved into second place ahead of team-mate Aldeguer after avoiding the yellow flags, but the field was still unable to challenge the Ducati at the top of the timesheets.
However, on the final flying lap of the session, Quartararo set claimed the all-time lap record to capture pole position at his home circuit.
Marquez was forced to settle for second, as his lap record was broken just 10 minutes after it was set.
The younger Marquez rounded out the front row of the grid for the Gresini team.
Aldeguer remained fourth despite his crash ahead of Maverick Vinales who earned fifth.
Bagnaia completed the second row of the grid in sixth ahead of fellow VR46 academy graduate Marco Bezzecchi in seventh.
Jack Miller was eighth, 0.867s from Quartararo’s pole time, with Franco Morbidelli concluding the third row in ninth.
Fernandez completed a strong qualifying in 10th, while Zarco was 11th following his crash.
Pedro Acosta took the flag in 12th to round out the fourth row.
Brad Binder narrowly missed out on Q2 and had to settle for 13th, with Alex Rins narrowly behind in 14th.
Joan Mir bested factory team-mate Luca Marini as the pair finished 15th and 16th respectively.
Fabio Di Giannantonio struggled as he finished 17th, with Enea Bastianini qualifying down in 18th.
Ogura was only able to take 19th after his crash, while Miguel Oliveira qualified 20th on his injury return.
Lorenzo Savadori was 21st while Takaaki Nakagami completed the standings in 22nd.
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