Reigning world champion Francesco Bagnaia put a halt to Aprilia\u2019s annexation of the timesheets at the MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix by snatching pole with a lap record from Aleix Espargaro.
Reigning world champion Francesco Bagnaia put a halt to Aprilia’s annexation of the timesheets at the MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix by snatching pole with a lap record from Aleix Espargaro.Miguel OliveiraSetting the early pace, Espargaro would ultimately be denied a second home pole by Ducati’s Bagnaia after the latter fired in a 1m38.639s to take top spot by 0.104 seconds.
Oliveira completed the front row, his first front row since his Portuguese GP pole in 2020 when he was with Tech3 KTM, while Maverick Vinales was fourth on the third Aprilia inside the top four.was the only Japanese bike rider to make it into Q2 but could do no more than 12th on his Honda. The eight-time world champion set the initial benchmark in Q2 on a used soft tyre following his Q1 outing, in which he shadowed KTM’sMarquez’s 1m40.665s was instantly blitzed, with Espargaro coming out on top after the opening salvo of laps with a 1m39.207s.on the sole KTM in the Q2 session was next to go fastest with a 1m39.176s, before Vinales edged ahead with a 1m39.099s.
A 1m38.752s from Espargaro – who was battling chatter issues on the front-end - in the closing three minutes of the session returned him to the top of the order. But it would not be enough to halt Bagnaia’s charge to a sixth pole, as the championship leader set a new lap record of 1m38.639s.A final flier from Espargaro kept him in touch, but he came up just 0.104s short as Oliveira completed the front row despite completing both 15-minute qualifying segments on one bike after wrecking his other one in his practice crash.
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