Marc Marquez notched up his ninth MotoGP World Championship pole position of the 2019 season as he comfortably saw off the challenge of Yamaha at his home Motorland Aragon circuit.
The hot favourite for pole on local soil after putting more than a second between himself and the opposition in free practice on Friday, though he sat out a damp FP3 this morning, Marquez was yet again the rider to beat against the stopwatch.
His lap time of 1m 47.009s was achieved on his first attempt – after aborting his second – but was still more than three tenths clear of Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Vinales, who again established themselves as the Spaniard’s biggest threat coming into the race, albeit a comfortable distance adrift.
Jack Miller heads up the second row as the best of the Ducati contingent on another tricky day for the Italian marque which saw its fading title hopeful Andrea Dovizioso down in tenth and an out-of-form Danilo Petrucci well off the pace in 15th.
Aprilia fifth, produces first-ever double Q2
Against the form book – and even Aleix Espargaro’s own disparaging words about the lack of development on his machine – Aprilia not only scored its first top five start since 2017 with the Spaniard, but was complemented by Andrea Iannone getting into 11th place. It is the first time since Aprilia returned to MotoGP that it has gotten two of its RS-GPs into the latter half of qualifying.
Valentino Rossi completes the second row on the third highest-placed Yamaha, while Cal Crutchlow gave himself a shot at a good result on Sunday with a run to seventh position on the LCR Honda.
Franco Morbidelli gets away from eighth from the best of the Suzukis in ninth place belonging to Joan Mir, followed by Italians Dovizioso and Iannone.
Pol Espargaro is a doubt for Sunday’s race after sitting out qualifying with a wrist injury, the result of a nasty high-side. Should he start he will line up in 12th place having done enough with his Friday efforts to assure a path into the final stages of qualifying.
Missing the Q2 cut again, Alex Rins has it all to do from 13th position, ahead of Takaaki Nakagami, Petrucci and Pecco Bagnaia. Jorge Lorenzo starts 20th, just adrift of Johann Zarco’s KTM replacement Mika Kallio.
