Jorge Martin flew to a sixth career MotoGP pole at the Circuit of the Americas despite having to navigate Q1, while a crash for Fabio Quartararo hampered his own efforts.
Martin managed to make it through to the pole shootout thanks to a strong run in Q1 that saw him top the session by 0.236s over Suzuki’s Alex Rins, the Pramac rider then quickly showing he had the pace for the front-runners by posting the third quickest time across the opening runs in Q2.
Ducati controlled proceedings at the head of the field as the clock counted down, the Italian marque assisted by a crash from Quartararo at the end of his opening gambit as the Frenchman looked to be on a lap that could challenge for the top spot, at the time held by Jack Miller.
Francesco Bagnaia managed to pip his factory Ducati team-mate to provisional pole on his last gasp effort with a 2:02.167s, though the Aussie swiftly hit back with an all-time two-wheeled lap record of the COTA circuit to hit the top once again.
Martin though had managed to take advantage of a relatively poor final split from Miller on his own last attempt, the one-time premier class race winner firing in a 2:02.039s to beat his fellow Ducati rider by just 0.003s.
Overnight leader Johann Zarco slotted in behind his Ducati stable-mates to grab fourth, while Enea Bastianini completed a dominant showing for the brand to complete an all-Desmosedici top five despite an early crash for the Gresini rider.
Quartararo ended up as best of the rest having swapped to his spare Yamaha following his untimely crash at Turn 19, with Suzuki duo Rins and 2020 MotoGP champion Joan Mir heading the third row ahead of Honda’s Marc Marquez, who bagged a top ten on his racing return.
Takaaki Nakagami rounded off the top ten on his LCR-run Honda ahead of VR46’s Luca Marini, while Pol Espargaro completed the 12-man Q2 field.
Just missing out on a spot in the pole shootout were both Aprilia men as they failed to reproduce the strong speed they displayed throughout Friday, Aleix Espargaro’s cause not being helped by a late crash after being distracted by riders following him for a tow – limiting him to a 13th position start just ahead of Maverick Vinales.
Marco Bezzecchi was the fastest rookie in 16th ahead of the quickest of the struggling KTM’s of Brad Binder, while Franco Morbidelli continued to scratch his head over a lack of speed on the sister factory Yamaha down in a lowly 19th.
Alex Marquez’s tough weekend failed to get any easier after running into a mechanical issue at the start of Q1, the 2019 Moto2 world champion ending up only 23rd on the grid after failing to find pace on his back-up RC213-V, with only Darryn Binder lining up behind after the RNF Racing Yamaha ace crashed out in the esses while trying to chase brother Brad.
