Martín Sets New Lap Record To Take Styrian GP Pole

Calum Gill 14:29 07/08/2021

Pramac's Jorge Martín took his second-ever pole position in qualifying for the Styrian Grand Prix, setting a new lap record in the process.

Spanish rookie Martín, whose other pole came at the Doha Grand Prix, set a time of a 01:22.994, becoming the first man to break the 83-second barrier at the Red Bull Ring on a motorcycle. That lap was good enough to beat factory Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia by 0.044 seconds. Championship leader Fabio Quartararo was on course to go even faster than Martín, but he went too wide at the penultimate corner, and the factory Yamaha rider's time was deleted.

Bagnaia's teammate Jack Miller was fourth, making it three Ducati's in the top 4, while reigning champion Joan Mir put in his best qualifying performance of the year to put his Suzuki in fifth place. Mir will have the use of a holeshot device for the first time tomorrow, so he will want to capitalise on this good qualifying. Johann Zarco, who currently sits second in the championship, couldn’t match the pace of his Pramac team-mate at the Red Bull Ring, but he still claimed an important sixth place on the grid. Aleix Espargaró claimed seventh on the grid for Aprilia ahead of Marc Márquez, who crashed in the dying moments of the session. Ninth place went the way of Maverick Viñales' Yamaha and Takaaki Nakagami rounded out the top 10 on the LCR Honda.

-Full weekend results 

Making it through to Q2 from Q1 was Nakagami’s team-mate Álex Márquez and the sole KTM in Q2 of Miguel Oliveira - recovering well after an FP1 shunt cost him a lot of practice running. The second Suzuki of Álex Rins was denied a place in Q2 by just 0.033 seconds in 13th place. In his first MotoGP qualifying session in three years, wildcard Dani Pedrosa qualified in 14th place on his KTM test bike, ahead of Pol Espargaró who was the only Honda rider not to make it to Q2. Brad Binder couldn’t match his KTM factory team-mate Oliveira in 16th place, just ahead of the retiring Valentino Rossi’s Petronas Yamaha SRT.

Enea Bastianini was on course for a shock Q2 appearance before his session-topping time was deleted because of a track limits infringement. The 23rd and slowest rider in the session was Cal Crutchlow as he continues to get up to speed on his first of three planned weekends this season, standing in for the injured Franco Morbidelli alongside Rossi.

2021 Styrian motorcycle Grand Prix Qualifying Classification

Q2

Q1