Marquez takes dominant pole in Aragon MotoGP qualifying
Gresini Ducati rider Marc Marquez took his second pole position of the 2024 MotoGP campaign, smashing the competition at Aragon by 0.840s.
The Spaniard looked in the best form of his short Ducati career as he topped all three practice sessions and converted that pace into qualifying.
Tech3’s Pedro Acosta, who progressed from Q1 and Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia, will join him on the front row.
In Q1, future factory KTM teammates Brad Binder and Acosta took the top two spots with their final laps of the session, earning them the chance to fight for positions further up the grid in Q2.
That demoted Bagnaia’s factory Ducati team-mate Enea Bastianini and meant that VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi just missed out after his final run, meaning he will line up 13th on the grid for the Sprint and GP.
As ever, progression out of Q1 was a close-run thing with Binder, Acosta and Bezzecchi covered by just 0.128s.
Joining Bezzecchi in elimination and thus occupying positions 14th through 22nd on the grid for the Sprint and Grand Prix were Bastianini, KTM’s Jack Miller, VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio, Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, outgoing LCR Honda rider Takaaki Nakagami, Tech3’s Augusto Fernandez, Honda’s Luca Marini, Alex Rins and Joan Mir.
Moving into Q2, all eyes were on Gresini’s M. Marquez, to see if the Spaniard could capitalise on the form that saw him top all three practice sessions aboard his GP23 Ducati machine.
Pushing to match him was Pramac’s Jorge Martin, who fell off during his first running in Q2 and a disrupted session meant he was out of contention.
Marquez had no equal however given his best effort of 1:46.766s being over eight-tenths clear of Acosta with Bagnaia just two-thousandths of a second off of the enigmatic rookie.
Martin was resigned to fourth with the second Marquez brother Alex rounding out the top five on his Gresini Ducati machine.
Franco Morbidelli had one of his better qualifying sessions, placing his Pramac Ducati GP24 in sixth, with Acosta’s fellow Q1 promote Binder in seventh.
The top-10 was rounded out by the Trackhouse Racing Aprilia duo of Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez, along with an impressive Johann Zarco, who ensured through Friday’s practice that his LCR Honda was an automatic Q2 runner.
Trackhouse will be buoyed by the fact their riders bettered the factory duo of Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales, who rounded out the Q2 order in 11th and 12th respectively.
