Marc Marquez earned his first pole position with Gresini Ducati in wet interchangeable conditions in the Spanish Grand Prix qualifying at Jerez, with VR46 Ducati rider Marco Bezzecchi and Pramac Ducati rider Jorge Martin following closely behind.
Marquez posted in an incredible 1.46.773s effort in retaliation to Marco Bezzecchi’s lap time of 1:47.044s, as both riders made the most of the difficult conditions.
Martin finished three-tenths adrift of Bezzecchi and approximately six-tenths back from Marque courtesy of a 1:47.381s laptime.
Riders in Q2 were experimenting with whether the medium rear was the right option, though pole-sitter Marquez used softs at one point but it proved to be too slippery on track.
Brad Binder pulled off a remarkable session considering he had to overcome Q1 and a difficult practice session, with the South African slotting himself in fourth ahead of Ducati riders Fabio Di Giannantonio and Alex Marquez on the second row.
Franco Morbidelli stepped up to the plate to reach Q2 in a bid to regain his pre-injury form and slotted himself between factory Ducati duo Francesco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini in the middle of the third row.
Acosta, when using a medium rear tyre, braved the conditions and was finding over half a second on his lap time but if it wasn’t for a small crash in the final corner it could have seen him put it on the front row. Instead, the crash put him down to 10th in the order.
Factory Aprilia’s pace in the mixed conditions was nowhere to be found with COTA winner Maverick Vinales finishing 11th and teammate Aleix Espargaro rounding off the top 12.
Johann Zarco was a big story in Q1, finishing third in the session to put himself 13th on the grid in a strong showing for the Frenchman.
Miguel Oliveira finished closely behind for Trackhouse Aprilia, who are looking to continue their strong showing from their home race in COTA.
Jack Miller’s ambition to rectify his struggling form this season has seen him qualify a disappointing 15th, despite going fastest throughout most of the laps, the KTM rider was unable to maintain pace in the last sector.
Wildcard and three-time MotoGP runner-up Dani Pedrosa finished closely behind his team-mate, as the 38-year-old has been able to closely match the Australian all weekend thus far.
Raul Fernandez was unable to post in a faster lap time than in practice and will start 17th for the Saturday Sprint and main race on Sunday.
Augusto Fernandez’s struggles continue as he will have to settle for 18th, especially with his GasGas team-mate Acosta in Q2, and once again will have it all to do for the Sprint and main race.
Honda wildcard Stefan Bradl finished 19th on the timesheets, ahead of 2020 champion and factor rider Joan Mir in 20th place.
Aprilia’s test and development rider Lorenzo Savadori improved in the dying embers of Q1 to claim 21st on the grid for his wildcard appearance, ahead of both Yamahas who struggled heavily in this session as Fabio Quartararo could only settle for 23rd and Alex Rins had to settle for last place.
There was steady improvement for Honda’s Luca Marini as he also bettered the two Yamahas to finish in 22nd, meanwhile, LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami finished in 24th, one place ahead of Rins.
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