After storming pole a week before his first victory at the Styrian GP, Martin’s fate changed in FP3 on Saturday at the Austrian GP when he crashed and had to go into Q1.
Martin left the first part of qualifying and denied Quartararo pole position in his final attempt to claim his third Saturday win in only his eighth MotoGP race weekend.
His Pramac team-mate Johann Zarco went into qualifying for the Austrian GP as a driver after setting a new lap record in FP1 on Friday and setting the first pace in the 15-minute Q2 with 1: 23.9842 minutes.
Marc Marquez quickly led his Honda to 1: 23.431 minutes to take over from Zarco before the Styrian GP poleman and race winner Jorge Martin shot to the top of the rankings with 1: 23.037 minutes after Q1.
But that took a full 30 seconds when Quartararo on his factory Yamaha flashed his way to a new lap record at the Red Bull Ring with 1: 22.677 minutes.
Quartararo was well on its way to improving that performance on his following lap, but narrowly missed the old lap record.
As the session drew to a close it looked like Quartararo would stay intact at 1: 22.643, but Martin found himself behind Zarco on his final lap and flew.
When he lit the timing screens at the end of the lap, Martin set another lap record on the Red Bull Ring of 1: 22.643 minutes to take pole in front of championship leaders Quartararo.
Factory Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia had no time on the board five minutes before the end due to violations of the track limits, but was able to secure third place with 1: 23.063 minutes.
Zarco will lead the fourth row, 0.477 seconds behind his teammate in pole position, while Marquez and Jack Miller’s sister factory Ducati complete the top six.
Joan Mir starts in seventh place on the Suzuki and is 0.045 seconds ahead of Aleix Espargarao’s Aprilia, while the factory KTM duo of Miguel Oliveira – who followed Martin in Q1 – and Brad Binder as well as the Hondas of Pol Espargaro and his LCR- Colleagues Takaaki Nakagami round off the top 12.
For the second straight week, Suzuki’s Alex Rins failed to lift himself out of Q1, missing the cut by just 0.105 seconds after Oliveira demoted him on his final lap.
Alex Marquez will have to work his way up from 14th on the grid on his LCR Honda, with Avintia rookie Enea Bastianini leading at the helm of Tech 3 KTM’s Iker Lecuona and Luca Marini’s sister Avintia Ducati.
Valentino Rossi recorded his worst qualifying result since Mugello in 18th place, with the exhausted Austrian GP field being completed by Danilo Petrucci’s sister Tech 3 KTM and Rossi’s Petronas SRT team-mate Cal Crutchlow.