Quartararo on pole, Mir only 14th in Le Mans qualifying

MotoGP championship leader Fabio Quartararo took pole position for the French Grand Prix – his home race at the Le Mans Bugatti circuit – while his main championship rival Joan Mir struggled in 14th.

The Petronas Yamaha rider will be joined on the front row by a pair of 2020-spec Ducatis, those of Pramac rider Jack Miller and works rider Danilo Petrucci.

Quartararo took the early lead in Q2, having run in his future works Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales’ tow en route a 1m31.669s.

This left Quartararo a tenth clear of nearest rival Francesco Bagnaia, who had fought his way through Q1 along with fellow Ducati rider Petrucci.

The championship leader then improved by 0.007s with under a minute on the clock, but had fallen foul of track limits, and was relegated to second by Miller moments later.

But he struck back after the chequered flag, outpacing Miller by just over two tenths with a 1m31.315s for his first home race pole position.

Petrucci jumped up the order late on to complete the top three, securing his first front-row start since the Mugello race last year.

Honda’s sole Q2 representative Cal Crutchlow was just 0.012s off the front row in fourth, with Vinales and the second works Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso joining him on row two. It marked Dovizioso’s first qualifying within the top six since the first Austria race.

Pramac man Bagnaia failed to improve late on and had to settle for seventh, with KTM’s Pol Espargaro and Avintia Ducati’s Johann Zarco completing the top nine.

Quartararo’s team-mate Franco Morbidelli was on provisional front row after the opening runs, but failed to find more pace on his second run and was shuffled all the day down to 11th, ending up 0.002s behind his 2021 Petronas team-mate Valentino Rossi.

Tech3 rider Miguel Oliveira had his KTM expire during FP4, dumping oil on track at the exit of Turn 7 and forcing a lengthy disruption to practice and a delay to qualifying. He then crashed his spare bike later in that same session – and though he went out in Q2 and was just 0.694s off pole, that still left him 12th and last in the second segment.

Suzuki endured a miserable qualifying session with its two factory bikes, as Ducati’s Q1 lock-out left championship contender Mir out of the pole shoot-out.

Mir had held the second transfer spot behind Petrucci with 30 seconds to go in the first segment, but was relegated by first Bagnaia and then LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami.

Yellow flags for the crash of KTM rider Brad Binder meant Mir was unable to give it a proper shot on the final lap, and he will line up in the middle of the fifth row, with Nakagami and Aprilia rider Aleix Espargaro either side of it.

It marked what was comfortably Mir’s worst qualifying of the season, but he was still nearly six tenths clear of team-mate Alex Rins, who will start 16th.

With little relevant Friday running, it proved a predictably difficult session for 2020’s three rookies, with Binder narrowly leading the contingent in 17th despite his crash. Honda’s Alex Marquez was one place back, with Tech3 KTM’s Iker Lecuona a further two down on his compatriot, with Aprilia’s shock FP1 pace-setter Bradley Smith slotting in between them.

Qualifying Results