QUARTARARO CLAIMS DRAMA-FILLED POLE POSITION
At his home in France, Fabio Quartararo has taken pole position for the MotoGP French Grand Prix in thrilling circumstances at Le Mans.
The pole position was the third straight for Quartararo this year and the second straight for Quartararo at the circuit.
It was an exciting and intriguing session with tiny rain showers playing havoc throughout the afternoon.
It appeared as though Marc Marquez had secured his first pole position since returning from injury as rain fell on the circuit with just three minutes on the clock remaining.
However, the sun appeared from behind the clouds and dried the track out very quickly, giving riders one more shot to improve their lap times, which most took.
From looking like a certain Honda 1-2-3, it became a Yamaha 1-2 with Quartararo beating his factory Yamaha teammate Maverick Vinales to pole position by 0.081s.
Australian Jack Miller was best of the rest in third position, he admitted after the session he nearly fell at Turn 1 on his final attempt; however he kept his cool and the rest of the lap was faultless.
The lap, a 1m 32.704 was 0.104s off pole position and only just over 0.02s from the time set by his good mate Vinales.
After injuring his knee earlier in the day Franco Morbidelli put the pain behind him to end the session in fourth just ahead of former championship leader Johann Zarco.
Morbidelli and his teammate Valentino Rossi were the first riders to go out on slick tyres, however as the conditions went from dry to wet and then back to dry this did not benefit the pair.
After appearing set for his first pole position since October 2019, six-time MotoGP World Champion Marquez was demoted to sixth, 0.437s off pole position.
His LCR Honda brand mate looked as if he would end up in second, but he was demoted to seventh, just ahead of factory Honda rider Pol Espargaro in eighth. Espargaro was in fact looking to challenge for pole on his final lap when he crashed at Turn 7.
The legendary Rossi qualified in ninth ahead of KTM rider Miguel Oliveira.
Aprilia rider Lorenzo Savadori made it through to Q2 for the first time and even out qualified lead rider Aleix Espargaro. Luca Marini rounded out the top 12 riders.
There were many riders that in tricky conditions missed out on a Q2 spot, most notably championship leader Francesco Bagnaia. Jack Miller’s factory Ducati teammate has completed very little laps in the rain on MotoGP machinery and meant he qualified down in 16th position.
Both Suzukis also missed the cut, reigning champion Joan Mir was 14th just ahead of teammate Alex Rins. Aleix Espargaro missed out in 13th just 0.066s from joining his teammate in Q2.
Defending French Grand Prix winner Danilo Petrucci qualified in 17th just ahead of Iker Lecuona. Alex Marquez crashed and ended up 19th ahead of Tito Rabat, Brad Binder and Enea Bastianini.
