Bagnaia Leads Factory Ducati 1-2 In Aragon GP Qualifying
Calum Gill 14:19 11/09/2021
Ducati's Italian rider Francesco Bagnaia has taken pole position for the MotoGP race at Aragon, leading teammate Jack Miller in a 1-2 for the Bologna outfit.
Bagnaia’s 01:46.322 effort represented a new MotoGP lap record at the venue, replacing the time set by Marc Márquez in qualifying back in 2015. Championship leader Fabio Quartararo went a tenth and a half clear on his first run, albeit having been more than half a second ahead after the first three sectors. And having more than matched Quartararo’s sectors once back out on a fresh soft rear, Bagnaia made the most of Ducati’s power in the final stretch of the lap to produce his record-breaking effort. Quartararo’s late push to respond was fruitless, and in fact potentially detrimental, with Miller using him as a distant reference to go 0.031 seconds quicker, securing the Ducati 1-2.
The improvement by Miller moved Márquez down to fourth, with the Honda man joined on row two by Jorge Martín (Pramac Ducati) and Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia). Joan Mir was a disappointed seventh for Suzuki, despite this representing a better-than-usual qualifying effort for the GSX-RR, while Pol Espargaró (Honda) and Enea Bastianini (Avintia Ducati) completing the top nine. Pramac’s Johann Zarco, who topped Q1, made it five Ducatis in the top 10.
Lead KTM rider Brad Binder joined Zarco in progressing through Q2 but had run out of fresh soft rear tyres, meaning he could only finish a distant 12th, nearly six tenths down on 11th-placed Takaaki Nakagami. Former Moto3 team-mates Álex Márquez (LCR Honda) and Álex Rins (Suzuki), who battled each other for victory in the first Aragon race last year, were both eliminated in the first segment. The younger Márquez was two tenths off advancing and will be sandwiched on the fifth row of the grid by Tech3 KTM rider Iker Lecuona - the second-best of the Austrian marque’s four-rider contingent - and the second-best Yamaha of stand-in Cal Crutchlow.
Rins for his part was a very disappointing 20th, recording his joint-worst qualifying result since 2017, ahead of only Petronas Yamaha duo Valentino Rossi and Jake Dixon. Among the riders who beat Rins was Aprilia’s new boy Maverick Viñales, albeit just by 0.014 seconds. Viñales very briefly flirted with a Q2 berth but will ultimately line up 19th for his RS-GP race debut.
