Francesco Bagnaia clinched pole for the MotoGP Aragon Grand Prix by breaking the lap record and leading a Ducati 1-2 ahead of teammate Jack Miller and Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo.
The old lap record in Aragon has been in place since 2015, but Bagnaia beat it and took his second pole of the 2021 season and the 50th for Ducati in MotoGP.
Avintia rookie Enea Bastianini set the early pace in his first appearance in the second quarter of 2021 with 1: 47.578 minutes, but was quickly dropped by Ducati stable colleague Bagnaia with 1: 46.908 minutes on his factory Desmosedici.
Bagnaia briefly led a Ducati 1-2 from teammate Jack Miller, but Marc Marquez split the pair on his second flying lap on the Honda.
Quartararo’s first flying lap left him in third, but he lost more than four tenths of a second in the final sector after completing the rest of the lap.
The Yamaha rider flashed through the first three sectors of his next attempt to get over half a second into the final split – which allowed him to take the lead with 1: 46.727 minutes.
That lap would be good enough to keep Quartararo in provisional pole position, but when Bagnaia opened his second run, he set a new lap record of 1: 46.332 minutes.
Bagnaia would make it to the checkered flag unchallenged, with teammate Miller being his closest rival, 0.366 seconds behind – Ducati’s first 1-2 in qualifying since Aragon 2018.
Quartararo completed the first row with 1: 46.719 minutes, increasing his streak of consecutive top 3 qualifying results this season to eleven.
Miller’s late improvement to second came at the expense of a front row start for Honda’s Marc Marquez, who will start fourth after missing third by just 0.017 seconds.
Jorge Martin held the provisional pole at the beginning of the session and will start in fifth ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro on the Pramac Ducati.
With 1: 46.883 minutes of the latter, World Champion Joan Mir was relegated to seventh place on the Suzuki, although the Spaniard was lucky enough not to be picked up by Marquez at the end of the session at Turn 1.
Pol Espargaro finished eighth on Bastianini’s second factory Honda and Q1 pacesetter Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati), while Takaaki Nakagami on the LCR Honda 11th fresh soft slicks for Q2.
The big shock of qualifying came in the form of Alex Rins, the 2020 Aragon GP winner on the Suzuki, who posted his worst Saturday result of the season.
The Suzuki rider was 0.497 seconds behind session leader Zarco and will start 20th, with just Petronas SRT duo Valentino Rossi and Jake Dixon behind him on the grid.
Tech 3 KTM’s Iker Lecuona continued his strong current form in qualifying at Aragon, with the Spaniard just over a tenth away from a Q2 place in 13th in the Honda World Superbike.
Lecuona led the 2020 Aragon GP runner-up, Alex Marquez on the LCR Honda and Yamaha deputy Cal Crutchlow, with Danilo Petrucci on the second Tech 3 KTM 16.
Luca Marini on the Avintia Ducati starts 17th ahead of KTM’s Miguel Oliveira, while Maverick Vinales will start on his Aprilia debut on Sunday 19th from the 19th.