Martín On Americas Pole As Ducati Lock Out Top Five
Calum Gill 21:01 09/04/2022
Jorge Martín beat Jack Miller to pole for MotoGP’s Grand Prix of the Americas by 0.003 seconds as Ducati secured the top five spots on the grid.
The Bologna marque already had its bikes locking out the top four - and factory duo Jack Miller and Francesco Bagnaia 0.008 seconds apart at the top - after the initial attempts in the pole shoot-out, its dominance aided by Fabio Quartararo sliding off at the penultimate corner while on a lap potentially good enough for provisional pole. Bagnaia then jumped a tenth and a half ahead of Miller with two minutes left on the clock, but the latter produced a swift response, his 2:02.042 finally surpassing Marc Márquez’s pole record from all the way back in 2015. However, Martín - who had fought through Q1 - absolutely nailed his final sector to overcome a one-tenth deficit and snatch pole from Miller by 0.003 seconds.
Bagnaia in third wound up 0.125 seconds off pole but four tenths up on the rest of the pack, as Martin’s Pramac team-mate Johann Zarco and Gresini Ducati’s Enea Bastianini completed the top five. Bastianini, riding a year-old Ducati, was beaten by Zarco by just 0.008 seconds late on. He had crashed on his initial run, but it was a very slow tip-off at Turn 15, allowing him to not only remount the bike but set what would wind up his best time. Quartararo recovered to score sixth, while the Suzukis of Álex Rins and Joan Mir completed the top eight, Rins having advanced through Q1 along with Martín.
The strategy of trying to follow Bastianini seemed to backfire for Márquez, with the Honda man - unbeaten at COTA in all but one race - having his first run compromised by Bastianini’s fall and failing to get a competitive lap in in the second. Still, he was the top Honda man, followed by Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda) in 10th and factory team-mate Pol Espargaró in 12th - with Luca Marini (VR46) slotting in between the latter duo. Argentine Grand Prix winner Aleix Espargaró was a comfortable ‘best of the rest’ in Q1, having wrecked his chances of advancing to the second segment with a crash at Turn 8 with three minutes to go.
Despite this, he still ended up two tenths clear of Aprilia team-mate Maverick Viñales, who managed to secure 14th late on by going 0.012 seconds quicker than Andrea Dovizioso (RNF Yamaha). VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi was the top rookie in 16th, while Brad Binder was the last rider within a second of Q1 pace-setter Martin another place down. As in every previous qualifying of 2022, Binder was the top KTM, but this time he recorded by far his worst grid position of the season with 17th - while his stablemates placed between 20th and 22nd. Along with the elder Espargaró, a pair of rookies - Tech3 KTM’s Remy Gardner and RNF Yamaha’s Darryn Binder - hit the deck during Q1.
