After last year’s double, there was no doubt that the Sachsenring was a track that Jorge Martin liked, but after three consecutive victories for Pecco Bagnaia, the Prima Pramac Racing rider absolutely needed to send a message on track to his rival and he did so in qualifying for the MotoGP German Grand Prix.
The World Championship leader went to take pole position, his 17th in the premier class and his fourth this year, and he did so by pulverizing the German up-and-down record with a stratospheric 1’19″423. A great time considering that the temperature during qualifying was a whopping 27 degrees, a decidedly unusual value in these parts.
The surprise is the two riders who will be alongside him on the front row, because behind him are the two Aprilias from Trackhouse Racing. Miguel Oliveira confirmed this morning the excellent feeling he had shown yesterday with his RS-GP and missed the appointment with the pole by just 48 thousandths. An important signal at a time when he still has to define his future and is coming off a complicated start to the season. However, Raul Fernandez also deserves a well done, third at 220 thousandths after going through Q1.
This time Pecco Bagnaia had to settle for fourth, finishing 326 thousandths behind his title rival. In all fairness, however, it must be said that the reigning world champion was playing it down to the thousandths of a second on his best lap, but was forced to close the throttle at the end of T3 due to a yellow flag. The Piedmontese opens an all-Ducati second row, which also includes Alex Marquez and Franco Morbidelli, with the Gresini Racing rider who crashed at turn 4 towards the end, thus failing to improve.
The yellow flag that slowed Bagnaia was triggered by Maverick Vinales, protagonist of a bad highside in the change of direction between turn 10 and turn 11, which ended with a rather hard “landing” on the asphalt. The Aprilia rider, therefore, is only seventh, and it must be said that for him this was the second fall of the day after the one that occurred at turn 1 in this morning’s free practice session. His qualifying then ended at the medical center, where he will undergo a check-up to evaluate the bad blow to his back.
Alongside his RS-GP will be the other two Ducatis of a bruised Fabio Di Giannantonio, who did not let a sore collarbone after yesterday’s fall slow him down, and of Enea Bastianini who once again seems to have qualifying as his Achilles heel. On a track where overtaking is really complicated like the German one, however, it could be a bigger problem than at Assen, where he climbed up to the podium.
You have to go down to tenth position to find the best of the KTMs, which is that of rookie Pedro Acosta. The gap of almost a second confirms that the Mattighofen bikes are not experiencing their best moment, as also confirmed by the fact that Brad Binder follows him by a few thousandths. The last to have scored the pass for Q2 was Marco Bezzecchi, who however after having passed Q1 was unable to do better than the 12th time with the Ducati of Pertamina Enduro VR46.
It continues to be a very troubled weekend for Marc Marquez: after yesterday’s bad accident, the Gresini Racing rider returned to the track with pain in his side (he also has a fractured finger), but he failed to make the cut for Q1 by just over a tenth, so he will be forced to start from 13th on the grid.
If nothing else, the problem doesn’t seem to be related to his physical condition, even if Marc seemed to be in quite a bit of pain, because first he was forced to abort an attempt due to a rather aggressive entry by Jack Miller into Turn 1, with the two narrowly avoiding contact. Then it was Honda test rider Stefan Bradl who ruined his plans, because the eight-time world champion found him practically stationary on the racing line at Turn 2. An episode for which the German immediately apologized during the practice starts, but he was also penalized three places on the grid.
Sharing the fifth row with #93 will be another former world champion, Fabio Quartararo. The Frenchman really tried everything to get his Yamaha into Q2, but in the end he was two tenths short of doing so, with an M1 that is probably suffering even more than expected from the German ups and downs. Following him, in 15th position, is the GasGas Tech3 of Augusto Fernandez, who had the satisfaction of leaving behind, with equal RC16, Miller who was unable to improve after the misunderstanding with Marquez.
The title of first Honda rider went to Takaaki Nakagami, who set the 17th time, but this weekend we must highlight the step forward by Luca Marini. It is true that the Italian rider is only 18th, but he has almost always managed to stay behind the other two RC213Vs of Johann Zarco and Joan Mir, who are also following him on the grid. As well as Bradl, who will therefore also drop behind Remy Gardner, who climbed onto the official Yamaha for the first time this weekend to replace the injured Alex Rins. And in light of this, the gap of less than a second from Quartararo is not bad at all.
Q2 Ranking
Q1 Ranking
#MotoGP #Martin #pole #Sachsenring #Marquez #13th
