Bagnaia denies Martin in Misano MotoGP pole fight

MotoGP title rivals Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin went blow for blow in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix pole battle, with Bagnaia ultimately prevailing at the last second.

Martin had taken away Bagnaia's Misano lap record from the previous race weekend - the San Marino GP at the same track two weeks ago - on their initial Q2 runs, but had no answer to Bagnaia's late-session burst of pace, which delivered a new all-time benchmark of 1m30.031s.

But even at two tenths of a second off, championship leader Martin still ended up closer to Bagnaia than the rest of the field, with Bagnaia's works Ducati team-mate Enea Bastianini sneaking his way onto the front row at the last second but five tenths off Bagnaia's pace.

KTM's Brad Binder had got through Q1 easily, then ended up placing fourth on the grid, denying his future team-mate Pedro Acosta (Tech3 Gas Gas) late on.

VR46 rider Marco Bezzecchi led the Ducati GP23 contingent in sixth, four hundredths up on Gresini’s Marc Marquez - who had an untidy Saturday morning, crashing in pre-qualifying practice, then on his first run in Q2, then nearly crashing again on his second run, too.

Maverick Vinales led Aprilia's efforts in eighth, followed by Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) and Franco Morbidelli (Pramac Ducati) - Morbidelli seven tenths off team-mate Martin after having outqualified him last time out. Morbidelli also ended up serving as an inadvertent roadblock for Martin on the latter's final flying lap, although Martin will have at that point already taken the best out of his tyres.

Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) and Binder's fellow Q1 graduate Miguel Oliveira (Trackhouse Aprilia) completed the Q2 order.

Fabio Di Giannantonio, whose heavy Friday crash added to his ongoing fitness concerns as he continues to recover from a lingering left shoulder injury, was back on the pace but ultimately a tenth and a half off a Q2 spot - and therefore 13th on the grid.

But the VR46 man was not the slowest of the Ducatis. That was Gresini rider Alex Marquez, whose miserable weekend continued with a second Turn 1 crash - this time on his opening Q1 run - and no representative time set once he headed back out.

Raul Fernandez in 14th was a quarter of a second down on Trackhouse team-mate Oliveira, followed by Luca Marini - narrowly prevailing in a three-way fight for intra-Honda supremacy.

Augusto Fernandez was using Binder as a reference through the session but crashed at Turn 3 in a last-ditch attempt to improve - albeit still ending up ahead of fellow KTM/Gas Gas RC16 rider Jack Miller, four tenths off where he had been on Friday and way down in 19th on the grid.

Alex Rins, whose weekend has been compromised heavily by illness, had returned to the track in pre-qualifying practice for 13 laps but wasn't really on pace and was subsequently absent entirely from Q1.