Bagnaia puts Ducati on Qatar MotoGP pole, canny Rossi stars

Francesco Bagnaia began his factory Ducati career by smashing the Qatar MotoGP lap record to take pole position for the 2021 season-opener.

Bagnaia’s 1m52.722s left him more than a quarter of a second clear of his rivals, even though the pole fight looked to be a super-close one initially.

Marc Marquez’s grand prix weekend lap record had been immediately consigned to history as Q2 began, with Bagnaia beating it by a tenth with his first attempt.

Yet just minutes later Bagnaia was already all the way down in fourth, his time beaten by Ducati team-mate Jack Miller and the works Yamahas of Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo – the latter unleashing a 1m53.038s that beat Miller’s benchmark from the five-day pre-season test at the venue two weeks prior.

But as riders switched to fresh soft rears, Bagnaia led the way again, becoming the first rider to dip below the 1m53s mark at Losail and by some margin too.

And with Quartararo failing to start his decisive flying lap in time as he just caught the chequered flag, nobody else was able to challenge the Italian, who claimed his maiden MotoGP pole.

Vinales managed a late improvement to join his factory Yamaha team-mate on the front row, narrowly denying the rider Quartararo replaced – Valentino Rossi.

The seven-time MotoGP champion pulled off a masterstroke by following Bagnaia (one of his VR46 proteges) on his explosive lap, and began his Petronas Yamaha stint with fourth on the grid.

Pre-event pole favourite Miller was only fifth in the end, while fellow Ducati rider Johann Zarco completed the top six. Pramac man Zarco had set the new MotoGP top speed record at the track in with 225.1mph in the pre-qualifying FP4, albeit running straight on at Turn 1 immediately after doing so.

Morbidelli, 0.541s off pole, made it four Yamahas in the top seven, just 0.002s ahead of Aleix Espargaro’s Aprilia. Espargaro’s team-mate Lorenzo Savadori propped up the grid after finishing a distant last in Q1.

The Suzuki duo of Alex Rins and Joan Mir and the Honda duo of LCR rider Takaaki Nakagami and factory rider Pol Espargaro completed the Q2 classification, with Honda debutant Espargaro 1.158s off pole.

Reigning champion Mir had had a supremely stressful Q1 session, managing to escape in the second of the two transfer spots by just 0.005s.

Mir led the running order in Q1 initially, but had to roll out of his first push lap on a fresh soft tyre and only managed a marginal improvement with his subsequent attempt.

But while that was enough to jump ahead of surging Avintia Ducati rookie Enea Bastianini by the aforementioned 0.005s, Mir was still in serious danger of missing out, with Nakagami and Jorge Martin (Pramac Ducati) pushing in tandem as the chequered flag flew.

Nakagami duly took the top spot in Q1 but rookie Martin fell in pursuit while on course to also beat Mir, allowing Suzuki’s champion to avoid elimination.

Q1’s nearly men Bastianini and Martin will be joined on row five by the top KTM, that of Miguel Oliveira, in 15th place.

The rest of the KTMs were no higher than 19th, continuing a dreadful Losail weekend for the Austrian marque – with its four-bike Q1 exit being something that didn’t happen at any point during 2020..

LCR Honda newcomer Alex Marquez in 16th will be joined by fellow Honda rider Stefan Bradl and the third of the Ducati rookies, Luca Marini, on row six.

Qualifying Results