MotoGP Qatar GP: Marc Marquez grabs pole, Bagnaia…

Marc Marquez claimed yet another 2025 pole position on Saturday at the Qatar Grand Prix, edging his brother Alex (Gresini Ducati) into a familiar second place.

Two major shocks emerged from the baking hot afternoon session at Losail. One was Marquez’s factory Ducati team-mate Francesco Bagnaia falling on his final run, condemning himself to a lowly 11th position on the grid and making a repeat of his victory in America last time out unlikely.

The second big surprise was Fabio Quartararo completing the front row on the factory Yamaha. The 2021 Doha GP winner briefly headed the timesheets with just over a minute of the session remaining, but was then pipped in quick succession by the Marquez brothers.

Fourth and fifth places were claimed by the consistently competitive VR46 Ducatis, with Franco Morbidelli getting the edge on Fabio di Giannantonio on this occasion. Maverick Vinales (Tech 3) repeated his fine qualifying form from the Americas GP by rounding out the second row as the leading KTM rider.

Johann Zarco (LCR Honda), Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati) and Quartararo’s team-mate Alex Rins will make up row three.

Rookie Trackhouse rider Ai Ogura was the only Aprilia representative to make it into Q2 and responded by qualifying 10th ahead of Bagnaia. Unusually slow in this session was factory KTM rider Pedro Acosta, who could only manage 12th.

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team (Photo by: Noushad Thekkayil - NurPhoto - Getty Images)

Earlier in Q1, Ogura booked his passage into Q2 with a dominant performance. His fastest lap from the first runs at the beginning of the session would have been enough for him to sit out the final attack on fresh rubber, but the Japanese rookie used the opportunity to rub his rivals’ noses in it by going even quicker.

Ogura ended the session with a best time of 1m51.104s and an impressive margin of 0.408s over Rins, who was thus able to join team-mate Quartararo in Q2.

Aprilia had little to celebrate apart from Ogura’s strong improvement on Friday, with factory rider Marco Bezzecchi the fastest to miss out on passage to Q2. But at least the Italian was a tenth quicker than his team-mate Jorge Martin, who continued to impress on his comeback weekend given his fitness and lack of bike time.

Martin made a mistake at the start of his first flying lap on his final run, which allowed him just one final chance to nail a lap. He duly seized this, booking himself 14th spot on the starting grid alongside Bezzecchi.

Luca Marini will start 15th after what was a disappointing day for the factory Honda squad. His team-mate Joan Mir will be having flashbacks to 2024 after booking himself a humble 21st spot on the grid, one clear of Somkiat Chantra at the very back.

An under-the-weather Jack Miller will line up 16th after falling off his Pramac Yamaha twice in practice.

Fellow southern hemisphere rider Brad Binder also disappointed aboard the second factory KTM – Acosta’s team-mate will start 18th.

Qatar GP Q1 results

1 - 2
Cla	Rider	#	Bike	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Speed Trap
1	A. Ogura Trackhouse Racing Team	79	Aprilia	7	1'51.104		174.323	352
2	A. Rins Yamaha Factory Racing	42	Yamaha	6	+0.408 1'51.512	0.408	173.685	343
3	M. Bezzecchi Aprilia Racing Team	72	Aprilia	7	+0.449 1'51.553	0.041	173.621	355
4	J. Martin Aprilia Racing Team	1	Aprilia	7	+0.551 1'51.655	0.102	173.462	350
5	L. Marini Honda HRC	10	Honda	7	+0.624 1'51.728	0.073	173.349	348
6	J. Miller Pramac Racing	43	Yamaha	7	+0.631 1'51.735	0.007	173.338	348
7	R. Fernández Trackhouse Racing Team	25	Aprilia	7	+0.718 1'51.822	0.087	173.203	348
8	B. Binder Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	33	KTM	6	+0.843 1'51.947	0.125	173.010	354
9	A. Fernandez Pramac Racing	7	Yamaha	7	+0.871 1'51.975	0.028	172.967	347
10	E. Bastianini Tech 3	23	KTM	7	+1.074 1'52.178	0.203	172.654	350
View full results

Qatar GP Q2 results

1 - 2
Cla	Rider	#	Bike	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Speed Trap
1	M. Marquez Ducati Team	93	Ducati	7	1'50.499		175.277
2	A. Marquez Gresini Racing	73	Ducati	7	+0.101 1'50.600	0.101	175.117
3	F. Quartararo Yamaha Factory Racing	20	Yamaha	7	+0.260 1'50.759	0.159	174.866
4	F. Morbidelli Team VR46	21	Ducati	7	+0.311 1'50.810	0.051	174.785
5	F. Di Giannantonio Team VR46	49	Ducati	7	+0.430 1'50.929	0.119	174.598
6	M. Viñales Tech 3	12	KTM	7	+0.560 1'51.059	0.130	174.393
7	J. Zarco Team LCR	5	Honda	7	+0.614 1'51.113	0.054	174.309
8	F. Aldeguer Gresini Racing	54	Ducati	7	+0.622 1'51.121	0.008	174.296
9	A. Rins Yamaha Factory Racing	42	Yamaha	7	+0.675 1'51.174	0.053	174.213
10	A. Ogura Trackhouse Racing Team	79	Aprilia	7	+0.841 1'51.340	0.166	173.953
View full results