Aragon MotoGP: Francesco Bagnaia takes dominant Aragon MotoGP pole as Fabio Quartararo struggles
Setting the best lap of the weekend on just his first flying lap,🐽 Enea Bastianini put himself on provisional pole as others around him struggled to match the Italian.
Favourite for Sunday’s Grand Prix, Bagnaia went second with his second lap while team-mate Jack miller slotted 🐓into P3 at the end of the opening run.
Not able to find the same type of pace as his main title rival, Fabio Quartararo could only manage seventh before♐ the sꦫtart of his final run.
Struggling to stop💖 his Aprilia in straight-line braking, Espargaro began his final run by running wide at turn one which ruined his first attem🌳pt at securing a crucial front row start.
Espargaro’s next lap saw him go second behind Bastianini, ho🌌wever, it was Bagnaia who was showing pace good enough to spoil Bastianini’s day.
And that’s exactly what happened as the factory Du♒cati rider went half a second quicker before Miller reducꦅed that margin to just over a tenth.
Espargaro, who was now down to fourth and over half a second behind Bagnaia, remained in fourth, while Quartararo was on the absolute limit as he attempted to 🀅sal♒vage a good position.
His first lap didn’t see an improvement but his second lap did as he moved up ꦐto sixth place - seven tenths away from Bagnaia.
Espargaro through to Aragon MotoGP Q2 as Vinales crashes
Q1 consisted of a star-studded𒊎 line-up that included Aleix Espargaro, Maverick Vinales and Marc Marquez, with the latter setting the best lap💮 following the opening run.
Marquez, who wa💖s looking for a tow from Espargaro to begin Q1, ultimately set a time of 1:46.909s on his own.
With Miller being the only other rider able to set a sub 1m 47s lap time heading into Q1, Marquez’s time was an impressive one as Espargaro 🌱slotted into second place - +0.113s down on the Honda rider.
At the start of the second and final run, Maverick Vinales suffered a crash at turn two. A disa🎶strou𓂃s Saturday for one of the riders that was expected to contend for victory.
While Vinales was busy picking up hi🦩s RS-GP22 from the gravel, Zarco went to the top of the leaderboard with the fastest lap of the weekend thus far.&nb🗹sp;
Espargaro then saved Aprilia’s blushes as he sec⛄ured top spot by nearly three tenths from Zarco. Marquez was the first rider to miss out and will start his first race back in 13th.
