Bagnaia defeats Martin in titanic Sepang MotoGP pole duel

Pecco Bagnaia defeated MotoGP 2024 title rival Jorge Martin in a memorable pole battle at the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The pair went not just under the pole record but under the lap record set in testing - with the aid of the extra rubber being put down by loads of running.

The qualifying contest looked all but decided after the initial runs in Q2, as Martin went half a second clear of Bagnaia and eight tenths clear of anyone else courtesy of a 1m56.553s.

But Bagnaia stepped it up massively on his second attempt. Just as Martin made a mistake behind him at Turn 1, the reigning champion narrowly bested Martin's benchmark through the first three sectors before a spectacular fourth sector put him into a comfortable provisional pole.

Martin still had time to try to improve upon Bagnaia's 1m56.337s, but could not match it with one last-gasp effort, which he had to bail out of after nearly crashing.

But he was still over seven tenths clear of anyone else on the grid in the end.

Gresini Ducati's Alex Marquez, who so excelled at Sepang last year, used Bagnaia as a distant reference point to snatch a front-row start, by just 0.004s over Martin's Pramac team-mate Franco Morbidelli.

Morbidelli finding half a second between his first and second runs meant Marc Marquez had to settle for fifth, while Bagnaia's works Ducati team-mate Enea Bastianini completed an all-Ducati top six.

Bastianini should've been higher up - and has generally looked like the only rider with anywhere near the capacity to get involved in the Bagnaia - Martin battle at the front this weekend - but crashed at Turn 15 late on.

Jack Miller's impressive weekend continued with seventh on the grid for KTM, followed by the two Yamahas of Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins - Quartararo having flashed superb race pace in pre-qualifying practice.

Brad Binder (KTM) and Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) were the two riders to advance from Q1, despite Zarco briefly stalling his bike during his pivotal second Q1 run.

He and Binder then couldn't match their Q1 laptimes in Q2 - so could only get ahead of Aprilia's Maverick Vinales.

Malaysian GP grid

1. Bagnaia - 2. Martin - 3. A. Marquez
4. Morbidelli - 5. M. Marquez - 6. Bastianini
7. Miller - 8. Quartararo - 9. Rins
10. Binder - 11. Zarco - 12. Vinales
13. Acosta - 14. Bezzecchi - 15. R. Fernandez
16. Espargaro - 17. Iannone - 18. Nakagami
19. Marini - 20. Mir - 21. A. Fernandez
22. Savadori

Rookie Pedro Acosta was the fastest of those eliminated in Q1, coming up 0.039s short of advancing at 2025 team-mate Binder's expense.

He will be joined on the fifth row by VR46 Ducati rider Marco Bezzecchi - who had headed the Q1 order after the opening runs - and Trackhouse Aprilia rider Raul Fernandez.

Aleix Espargaro had to come into the Aprilia box unscheduled during his final run for what ended up being a bike swap, so only fitted in one flying lap in the end - which only served to give Zarco behind him a welcome reference point during the Frenchman's Q1-topping lap.

Espargaro ended up sixth, followed by MotoGP returnee Andrea Iannone in his first premier-class qualifying in five years.

Iannone, riding in relief of Fabio Di Giannantonio, tucked in behind Bezzecchi for all of Q1 and could've potentially been higher still if not for an error at the final corner.

Outside of the top 20, Augusto Fernandez's miserable 2024 season continued with a crash and a 19th successive qualifying defeat against team-mate Acosta, who is now one round away from completing an intra-team clean sweep on the season.