Martin leads mixed-up grid as Marquez crashes twice

Jorge Martin took a dominant pole position for MotoGP’s Indonesian Grand Prix at the head of a grid shaped by yellow flags for a stream of crashes - including two for Marc Marquez.

Championship leader Jorge Martin got his 1m29.088s in immediately in Q2 and it proved wise as few got clear laps in after that.

Marquez was following Martin on his first flying lap when he dropped his Gresini Ducati into the final corners - pulling off an initial great save before losing it terminally a moment later.

He got back to the pits for his spare bike only to continue his run of costly qualifying crashes by repeating his Friday fall at the Turn 10 right-hander, this time while following Pecco Bagnaia.

The visibly hugely frustrated Marquez - who also slipped back off his bike while trying to push it back on track following his second crash - consequently failed to complete a single Q2 flying lap so will start 12th.

VR46 Ducati rider Marco Bezzecchi brought out more yellows with a late fall, yet immediately remounted and on his next lap snatched second on the grid - albeit 0.535 seconds off Martin’s Pramac Ducati.

That demoted Pedro Acosta to third in what was still an incredible performance by the Tech3 GasGas rider given where the rest of the KTM group ended up in qualifying. Works riders Jack Miller and Brad Binder start only 16th and 19th respectively, Binder hampered by a rear brake problem, with Acosta’s team-mate Augusto Fernandez 21st and last.

Bagnaia and works Ducati team-mate Enea Bastianini put in banker laps between the yellows that got them to fourth and fifth on the grid, albeit with Bastianini having earlier triggered yellows of his own with a low-speed tip-off on his first flying lap.

Amid all that, Yamaha and Honda achieved their best grid positions of 2024 so far through a combination of getting clean laps in and brilliant riding by Fabio Quartararo and LCR’s Q1 pacesetter Johann Zarco to take sixth and seventh ahead of Bezzecchi’s team-mate Fabio di Giannantonio and Martin’s team-mate Franco Morbidelli.

After losing Trackhouse rider Miguel Oliveira to a broken wrist on Friday, Aprilia got two of its three remaining bikes into Q2 at least but works rider Maverick Vinales and Oliveira’s team-mate Raul Fernandez could only manage 10th and 11th.

Vinales’ team-mate Aleix Espargaro starts 13th after crashing in Q1, one place ahead of fellow Q1 crasher Alex Marquez’s Gresini Ducati.

The factory Hondas were nowhere near matching Zarco’s efforts, with Luca Marini and Joan Mir qualifying 17th and 20th respectively.