Bagnaia grabs Aragon MotoGP pole, his title rivals on row two

Francesco Bagnaia led a Ducati front-row lockout in MotoGP qualifying at Aragon, with his title rivals Aleix Espargaro and Fabio Quartararo ending up on row two.

Gresini rider Enea Bastianini led the way after the initial runs in Q2, but Bagnaia delivered a record-breaking 1m46.069s lap to snatch his fifth pole position of the season.

Factory team-mate Jack Miller came closest to deposing Bagnaia but was 0.090s slower, while Bastianini completed the front row, another tenth and a half down.

Aprilia’s Espargaro fought his way through Q1 and made the best of a single representative run in Q2 to take fourth place, half a tenth up on fellow Q1 graduate Johann Zarco (Pramac).

Championship leader Quartararo nearly fell at Turn 2 on his penultimate lap, but held on and managed to salvage a sixth place with his final attempt.

Just LOOK at how hard @FabioQ20 is pushing! 🥵#AragonGP 🏁 pic.twitter.com/WKbkwseGRq

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) September 17, 2022

He was followed by Marco Bezzecchi (VR46 Ducati) and Jorge Martin (Pramac Ducati), with Martin having lost his preferred bike to a mechanical failure in the pre-qualifying Saturday afternoon practice.

Suzuki’s Alex Rins headed the KTMs of Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira and Honda’s sole representative in Q2, LCR rider Takaaki Nakagami.

Binder had hurt his right ankle in FP3 and faced a pre-qualifying fitness check, but passed it and – despite being “not 100 percent, for sure”, according to his team boss Francesco Guidotti – outqualified Oliveira by two tenths and a half.

Marc Marquez – seemingly using the Kalex aluminium swingarm rather than Honda’s normal carbon fibre version – marked his MotoGP return with 13th place on the grid, despite having led Q1 after his initial run.

He had come out of the pits in Q1 trying to follow Espargaro, but Espargaro deliberately ran wide at Turn 1 at the start of his flying lap – which has led to him being placed under investigation for potentially impeding Fabio Di Giannantonio on the outside kerb, although the incident appeared fairly innocuous.

The incident that's under investigation! 👇#AragonGP 🏁 pic.twitter.com/BO9H4g1jlN

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) September 17, 2022

For the next run, Marquez favoured following VR46 Ducati’s Luca Marini, but both were caught out by yellow flags for a Turn 5 crash for Marquez’s Honda team-mate Pol Espargaro.

Marquez therefore missed out on progressing, ending up just over half a tenth behind Zarco, while Marini and Di Giannantonio will join him on the fifth row.

The classic Aragon crash! 💥

That is Maverick's first fall of the season in a race weekend and it comes at a crucial time! 🤯#AragonGP 🏁 pic.twitter.com/lEHHJEHvHH

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) September 17, 2022

Maverick Vinales consigned himself to 16th place and just his first Q1 exit since Mugello by crashing out at Turn 2, which had also seen falls for Bezzecchi and RNF Yamaha’s Darryn Binder in the pre-qualifying practice session.

Vinales’ crash marked his first grand prix weekend fall of his Aprilia tenure – which had begun at this venue a year prior.

The returning Cal Crutchlow, taking the RNF Yamaha seat vacated by Andrea Dovizioso, was the second-best Yamaha qualifier right away, narrowly outpacing factory rider Franco Morbidelli for 19th place.

The field is down to just 23 riders for the remainder of the weekend, with Suzuki’s Joan Mir having withdrawn on medical advice following Saturday morning’s practice.

Missing you already 💙 @JoanMirOfficial @MotoGP #AragonGP pic.twitter.com/tqkCWv2cnH

— Team Suzuki Ecstar (@suzukimotogp) September 17, 2022

Qualifying Results