Marc Marquez still unbeaten in 2025 MotoGP qualifying - but it was close

MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez took an expected pole position for the Grand Prix of Americas - though was run closer than weekend form had suggested.

Marquez didn't have a particularly tidy run through Q2, so was actually behind brother Alex with a minute left on the clock - but then stamped his authority on the pole fight with a 2m01.088s.

But he was only a tenth of a second clear of his nearest rival, VR46 rider Fabio Di Giannantonio - whose team went through an emotional rollercoaster as his lap was deleted for a yellow flag infringement and then reinstated upon further review.

The younger Marquez ended up third, followed by KTM standout Pedro Acosta, who looked to have sniped a surprise front-row spot before the Di Giannantonio verdict was revised.

Franco Morbidelli took fifth place on the second of the VR46 bikes, while factory rider Pecco Bagnaia made it five Ducatis in the top six - but was 0.523s off his team-mate's pole time.

Honda looked on course for another great qualifying result but Joan Mir - after a very narrow front-end save earlier in Q1 already - crashed while running behind Marc Marquez, so ended up only eighth, a place behind his team-mate Luca Marini, who had fought through Q1.

Jack Miller's exceptional weekend continued as the Pramac man placed ninth on the grid as the top Yamaha, setting the same time as Mir but losing out on the second-best lap tiebreak.

Maverick Vinales (Tech3 KTM) and Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) were only 0.011s and 0.024s behind them respectively, Quartararo having gone through Q1 - where he'd also had a major save as his front end bounced through Turn 1 and nearly threw him off the bike.

Rookie Fermin Aldeguer's first Q2 appearance ended with 12th place. The Gresini rider crashed while trying to keep up with the elder Marquez and Mir, and though he improved his laptime after getting back on the bike it wasn't by nearly enough.

GP of the Americas starting grid

1 M Marquez 2 Di Giannantonio 3 A Marquez
4 Acosta 5 Morbidelli 6 Bagnaia
7 Marini 8 Mir 9 Miller
10 Vinales 11 Quartararo 12 Aldeguer
13 Bezzecchi 14 Rins 15 Zarco
16 Binder 17 Bastianini 18 Ogura
19 R Fernandez 20 A Fernandez 21 Chantra
22 Savadori

A year on from Vinales' scintillating win, all four Aprilias were eliminated in Q1, which was effectively rendered a single-run session by Raul Fernandez dropping a rear wheel off the Turn 9 exit kerb and sending his Aprilia hard into the Turn 10 barriers - with the impact eventually necessitating a red flag for air fence repairs.

Marco Bezzecchi was the lead of the RS-GP riders but came up a tenth short of Q2, so will be joined on row five by Alex Rins (Yamaha) and Johann Zarco (LCR Honda).

Zarco, left to rue his Friday crash when he looked more competitive to make Q2, did at least beat KTM's Brad Binder by 0.001s for that 15th place - with Enea Bastianini two tenths back from Binder as the last of the KTMs.

Trackhouse Aprilia rookie Ai Ogura had a barrier-hitting crash of his own, albeit in pre-qualifying practice rather than Q1 like team-mate Fernandez, but did ultimately narrowly beat Fernandez to keep up his 100-percent intra-team qualifying record.

Augusto Fernandez, standing in for the injured Miguel Oliveira at Pramac Yamaha, qualified 20th on his MotoGP return - beating a series regular in rookie Somkiat Chantra (LCR Honda) and fellow stand-in Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia), who on Friday wasn't confident of seeing out the weekend due to his lingering shoulder injury from Termas de Rio Hondo.