Maverick Vinales stormed to pole position for the San Marino Grand Prix at Misano ahead of a stunning Pol Espargaro who will start second for KTM.
Vinales looked set to settle for a front row after he improved on the first of his final flyers to third, demoting championship leader Marc Marquez to fourth but unable to match the two SRT Petronas machines of Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli.
Quartararo then looked good to extend his pole advantage on his final effort, but ran wide in the closing sector of the lap and was forced to back out.
Espargaro then shot to a shock provisional pole as the clock ticked down by just 0.011 ahead of Quartararo, with just Vinales and Marquez remaining on fast laps.
Vinales was first to cross the line and cruelly denied KTM their first ever MotoGP pole by 0.295, while Marquez was blocked by the second factory Yamaha of Valentino Rossi into Turn 14, having to back off and lose his lap as a result.
Espargaro’s second place start is still the best ever qualifying result for the Austrian squad, beating Johann Zarco’s third place at Brno earlier this year.
Quartararo will start third ahead of team-mate Morbidelli, while Marquez will have to make do with the middle of the second row in fifth spot.
Zarco put in a masterful performance to head Joan Mir at the end of Q1, the pair joining the ten riders already through to Q2 following FP3 on Saturday morning.
The KTM man left it late to set his fastest lap of the weekend, a 1:33.147, to lead Mir by 0.328.
Mir squeaked into Q2 by the thinnest of margins as Pramac’s Francesco Bagnaia came within 0.003 of relegating the Suzuki, the Spaniard continuing to rebuild his confidence following two rounds on the sidelines through injury.
Andrea Dovizioso salvaged a tough day for Ducati with sixth on the grid ahead of Rossi, while Zarco backed up Espargaro’s excellent result with eighth ahead of the two Suzuki’s of Alex Rins and Mir who completed the top ten.
Takaaki Nakagami will start 11th for tomorrow’s race, while Michele Pirro was the slowest of the Q2 runners on what is his second wildcard event of the year.
Cal Crutchlow could manage only the fourth fastest time in Q1 and will start 14th as a result, while Ducati pair Jack Miller and Danilo Petrucci fared even worse and will take off from 16th and 17th respectively, just ahead of Honda’s Jorge Lorenzo in 18th.
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