Marc Marquez outgunned pre-qualifying favourite Pedro Acosta to claim a sensational pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
While Acosta led the majority of Q2 aboard the factory KTM, reigning world champion Marquez set two rapid laps towards the end of the session to maintain his perfect qualifying record at the Balaton Park Circuit.
Fermin Aldeguer completed the front row for Gresini, while Marco Bezzecchi was Aprilia’s top runner in sixth.
At the start of the session, Acosta carried his form from Friday into qualifying, climbing to the top spot of the timesheets with a 1m37.419s before finding another two tenths on his next flying lap.
Meanwhile, Ducati suffered an early setback in Q2, with both Marquez and Fabio di Giannantonio going down at Turn 1 within seconds of each other.
However, both riders were able to remount their respective bikes and keep the engines running, with Marquez quickly moving up to second ahead of Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez.
At this stage, championship leader Bezzecchi languished in eighth place, more than half a second down on Acosta.
Pedro Acosta, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / Getty Images
As the riders returned to the track in the final five minutes on fresh soft tyres, Acosta moved the goalposts with the first sub 1m37s lap of the day, putting more than half a second between him and the rest of the field.
This appeared to give the 22-year-old a decisive advantage at the front, but Marquez managed to pull something special out of the bag, posting a time of 1m36.791s to snatch the top spot.
In response, Acosta could only manage a time of 1m36.838s on his next flying lap, guaranteeing the top spot to Marquez, but the latter nevertheless improved his time to 1m36.838s to cement his grip at the front.
The result marked Marquez’s pole of the season after he topped qualifying in the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez.
Meanwhile, Gresini sophomore Aldeguer continued his fine form at Balaton Park to book a spot on the front row behind Acosta. Di Giannantonio qualified fourth while factory rider Francesco Bagnaia came all the way from Q1 to qualify fifth, putting four Ducatis inside the top five.
Aprilia’s challenge fell flat in qualifying, with Bezzecchi ending up more than six tenths off the pace in sixth. He was closely followed by Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez and team-mate Jorge Martin, while Honda’s Luca Marini – who came from Q1 – even outqualified the other Trackhouse bike of Ai Ogura.
The top 12 was completed by LCR rookie Diogo Moreira and Pramac’s Jack Miller.
Franco Morbidelli, VR46 Racing Team
Photo by: Ferenc Isza / AFP via Getty Images
Joan Mir set the early pace in qualifying but was knocked out of provisional Q2 spots by team-mate Marini, leaving him 13th on the grid. He will be joined on the fifth row by Tech3’s Enea Bastianini and factory Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo.
World Superbike star Iker Lecuona put his Gresini Ducati 16th on the grid on his return to MotoGP, with KTM’s Brad Binder ending up right behind him in 17th after crashing late on at Turn 12.
Toprak Razgatlioglu ended up 18th for Pramac, while Franco Morbidelli’s miserable weekend continued as the VR46 rider qualified 19th. Alex Rins (Yamaha) and Maverick Vinales (Tech3) set identical times and were qualified 20th and 21st respectively, with Johann Zarco’s injury replacement Cal Crutchlow again propping up the timesheets.
MotoGP Hungarian GP – Qualifying results
Hungarian GP – Q2 results
Hungarian GP – Q1 results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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