Francesco Bagnaia bounced back from a dismal run of form to take pole position for the Japanese MotoGP round with a new all-time lap record.
Bagnaia took advantage of the evolving track conditions as he claimed his second pole position of the campaign with a blistering lap time of 1:42.911.
Alex Marquez narrowly made it into the fight for pole after a flurry of yellow flags at the end of Q1 allowed him to progress into the top 12.
As the opening laps came in, Bagnaia took the initiative after using both Marquez brothers as a marker.
The Italian edged ahead of team-mate Marc Marquez, who was clearly struggling with the setup on his GP25 and opted to follow his brother around the Motegi track.
With the session drawing to a close, a number of riders set their personal best laptimes to move inside the top five, as Honda’s Joan Mir emerged as the surprise contender for pole.
However, Bagnaia re-emerged from the pit lane to set his best lap on his final lap of the session, topping the timesheets to snatch pole position by 0.092s.
Mir matched his best-ever qualifying in MotoGP by claiming second place, while Marc Marquez cemented his spot on the front row.
Pedro Acosta recovered from apparent technical problems as he headed the second row in fourth ahead of Fabio Quartararo in fifth and Franco Morbidelli in sixth.
Luca Marini completed a strong qualifying for the factory Honda outfit in seventh, edging clear of title contender Alex Marquez in eighth.
Marco Bezzecchi completed the third row in ninth, while Raul Fernandez rounded out the top 10.
Johann Zarco finished his session by qualifying in 11th, as Fabio Di Giannantonio struggled following a crash in practice and could only manage 12th.
Ai Ogura narrowly missed out on a Q2 spot due to yellow flags and had to settle for 13th, while Jack Miller in 14th and Fermin Aldeguer in 15th joined him on the fifth row.
Miguel Oliveira was 16th at the end of the session, as yellow flags hampered reigning World Champion Jorge Martin in 17th.
Brad Binder suffered a fast crash at the end of Q1 and finished 18th, with Alex Rins also crashing in the final seconds in 19th.
Honda wildcard Takaaki Nakagami completed his qualifying session in 20th, edging out Enea Bastianini in 21st.
Somkiat Chantra ended the session in 22nd, while Maverick Vinales completed the standings in 23rd as he continued battling a shoulder injury.
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