Bagnaia Smashes Assen Lap Record For Dutch TT Pole
Calum Gill 14:32 25/06/2022
Francesco Bagnaia took Ducati’s eighth pole of the 2022 MotoGP season at Assen with a new lap record.
Bagnaia’s 01:31.405, giving him his 10th pole in MotoGP, was four tenths clear of last year’s lap record, which had come from Maverick Viñales in one of his final Yamaha appearances. After a mostly-wet Friday and a dry FP3 and FP4, the threat of rain loomed for much of qualifying - but it never amounted to anything aside from a few rain drops. Jorge Martín and Fabio Quartararo went under the previous lap record with their very first attempts in Q2 - the former outpacing the latter by 0.010 seconds - and headed into the final minutes three tenths clear of the chasing pack. Yet this soon proved not enough, with Bagnaia gathering himself on his second run to improve his time by half a second, jumping ahead of the duo.
He retreated into the pits soon after, two minutes before the chequered flag, but the lap had proven sufficient - with Quartararo improving to leapfrog Martín but ending up a tenth short of Bagnaia, before nearly crashing on his final attempt. Martín, for his part, did crash at the hairpin-like Strubben, but still ended up on the front row - followed by VR46 Ducati rookie Marco Bezzecchi, who had tucked in behind Bagnaia on his record lap. Aleix Espargaró was the best Aprilia in fifth, six places up on team-mate Viñales - the latter hindered by a slow Jack Miller, who had remounted his Ducati after a late crash at Strubben. Miller - who went into Viñales’ pit box after the session to tell him he was “really sorry” – still wound up sixth, beating Pramac Ducati’s Johann Zarco to the last spot on row two. Miller was though - for the second consecutive race - given a long-lap penalty for the Grand Prix.
Red Bull KTM riders Miguel Oliveira and Brad Binder both fought through Q1, securing KTM’s first Q2 appearances in six races. Oliveira wound up eighth in the pole shoot-out, with Binder 10th and Suzuki’s Álex Rins between them. LCR rider Takaaki Nakagami was the sole Honda representative in Q2 and ended the session a distant 12th. VR46 Ducati rider Luca Marini was best of the rest behind the two factory KTMs in the first segment, albeit nearly a quarter of a second down. Joan Mir was a further tenth off for Suzuki, having crashed late on at Strubben - in a near-identical fall to Martín’s - and briefly getting his leg trapped under his GSX-RR. He was unhurt and it was undamaged, allowing him to hop back on and continue pushing, but his efforts proved for naught.
Rookie Fabio Di Giannantonio beat his Gresini Ducati team-mate Bastianini to the final place on the fifth row, Bastianini having had his Q1 compromised by his Desmosedici GP21 losing power immediately coming out of the pits – forcing him to go to his other bike. RNF Yamaha's Andrea Dovizioso had a relatively strong run for 17th place, followed by Repsol Honda stand-in Stefan Bradl and Tech3 KTM rookie Remy Gardner. Yamaha factory rider Franco Morbidelli’s torrid qualifying run continued, the Italian unable to crack the top 15 in qualifying for eighth successive race. He was sixth tenths off the pace in Q1 this time, which translated to 20th on the grid. LCR Honda's Álex Márquez - reported to have agreed to leave the team at the end of the year - was 21st, ahead of Aprilia tester Lorenzo Savadori, Tech3's Raúl Fernández and RNF Yamaha's Darryn Binder.
